the twilight the wind becomes power. A hunter that is worth his salt knows
that, and acts accordingly."
"How does he act?"
"He uses the twilight and that power hidden in the wind."
"How?"
"If it is convenient to him, the hunter hides from the power by
covering himself and remaining motionless until the twilight is gone and the
power has sealed him into its protection."
Don Juan made a gesture of enveloping something with his hands.
"Its protection is like a ..."
He paused in search of a word and I suggested "cocoon."
"That is right, " he said. "The protection of the power seals you like
in a cocoon. A hunter can stay out in the open and no puma or coyote or
slimy bug could bother him. A mountain lion could come up to the hunter's
nose and sniff him, and if the hunter does not move, the lion would leave. I
can guarantee you that.
"If the hunter, on the other hand, wants to be noticed all he has to do
is to stand on a hilltop at the time of the twilight and the power will nag
him and seek him all night. Therefore, if a hunter wants to travel at night
or if he wants to be kept awake he must make himself available to the wind.
"Therein lies the secret of great hunters. To be available and
unavailable at the precise turn of the road."
I felt a bit confused and asked him to recapitulate his point.
Don Juan very patiently explained that he had used the twilight and the
wind to point out the crucial importance of the interplay between hiding and
showing oneself.
"You must learn to become deliberately available and unavailable, " he
said. "As your life goes now, you are unwittingly available at all times."
I protested. My feeling was that my life was becoming increasingly more
and more secretive. He said I had not understood his point, and that to be
unavailable did not mean to hide or to be secretive but to be inaccessible.
"Let me put it in another way, " he proceeded patiently. "It makes no
difference to hide if everyone knows that you are hiding.
"Your problems right now stem from that. When you are hiding, everyone
knows that you are hiding, and when you are not, you are available for
everyone to take a poke at you."
I was beginning to feel threatened and hurriedly tried to defend
myself. "Don't explain yourself, "don Juan said dryly. "There is no need. We
are fools, all of us, and you cannot be different. At one time in my life I,
like you, made myself available over and over again until there was nothing
of me left for anything except perhaps crying. And that I did, just like
yourself."
Don Juan sized me up for a moment and then sighed loudly.
"I was younger than you, though, " he went on, "but one day I had
enough and I changed. Let's say that one day, when I was becoming a hunter,
I learned the secret of being available and unavailable."
I told him that his point was bypassing me. I truly could not
understand what he meant by being available. He had used the Spanish idioms
"ponerse al alcance" and "ponerse en el del camino, "to put oneself within
reach, and to put oneself in the middle of a trafficked way.
"You must take yourself away, " he explained. "You must retrieve
yourself from the middle of a trafficked way. Your whole being is there,
thus it is of no use to hide; you would only imagine that you are hidden.
Being in the middle of the road means that everyone passing by watches your
comings and goings."
His metaphor was interesting, but at the same time it was also obscure.
"You are talking in riddles, " I said.
He stared at me fixedly for a long moment and then began to hum a tune.
I straightened my back and sat attentively. I knew that when don Juan hummed
a Mexican tune he was about to clobber me.
"Hey, " he said, smiling, and peered at me. "Whatever happened to your
blond friend? That girl that you used to really like." I must have looked at
him like a confounded idiot. He laughed with great delight. I did not know
what to say.
"You told me about her, " he said reassuringly.
"But I did not remember ever telling him about anybody, much less about
a blond girl.
"I've never mentioned anything like that to you, " I said.
"Of course you have, " he said as if dismissing the argument.
I wanted to protest, but he stopped me, saying that it did not matter
how he knew about her, that the important issue was that I had liked her.
I sensed a surge of animosity towards him building up within myself.
"Don't stall, " don Juan said dryly. "This is a time when you should
cut off your feelings of importance.
"You once had a woman, a very dear woman, and then one day you lost
her."
I began to wonder if I had ever talked about her to don. Juan. I
concluded that there had never been an opportunity.
Yet I might have. Every time he drove with me we had always talked
incessantly about everything. I did not remember everything we had talked
about because I could not take notes while driving. I felt somehow appeased
by my conclusions. I told him that he was right. There had been a very
important blond girl in my life.
"Why isn't she with you?" he asked.
"She left."
"Why?"
"There were many reasons;"
"There were not so many reasons. There was only one.
You made yourself too available."
I earnestly wanted to know what he meant. He again had touched me. He
seemed to be cognizant of the effect of his touch and puckered up his lips
to hide a mischievous smile.
"Everyone knew about you two, " he said with unshaken conviction.
"Was it wrong?"
"It was deadly wrong. She was a fine person."
I expressed the sincere feeling that his fishing in the dark was odious
to me, especially the fact that he always made his statements with the
assurance of someone who had been at the scene and had seen it all.
"But that's true, " he said with a disarming candor. "I have seen it
all. She was a fine person."
I knew that it was meaningless to argue, but I was angry with him for
touching that sore spot in my life and I said that the girl in question was
not such a fine person after all, that in my opinion she was rather weak.
"So are you, " he said calmly. "But that is not important. What counts
is that you have looked for her everywhere; that makes her a special person
in your world, and for a special person one should have only fine words."
I felt embarrassed; a great sadness had begun to engulf me.
"What are you doing to me, don Juan?" I asked. "You always succeed in
making me sad. Why?"
"You are now indulging in sentimentality, " he said accusingly.
"What is the point of all this, don Juan?"
"Being inaccessible is the point, " he declared. "I brought up the
memory of this person only as a means to show you directly what I couldn't
show you with the wind.
"You lost her because you were accessible; you were always within her
reach and your life was a routine one."
"No!" I said. "You're wrong. My life was never a routine."
"It was and it is a routine, " he said dogmatically. "It is an unusual
routine and that gives you the impression that it is not a routine, but I
assure you it is."
I wanted to sulk and get lost in moroseness, but somehow his eyes made
me feel restless; they seemed to push me on and on.
"The art of a hunter is to become inaccessible, " he said. "In the case
of that blond girl it would've meant that you had to become a hunter and
meet her sparingly. Not the way you did. You stayed with her day after day,
until the only feeling that remained was boredom. True?" I did not answer. I
felt I did not have to. He was right.
"To be inaccessible means that you touch the world around you
sparingly. You don't eat five quail; you eat one. You don't damage the
plants just to make a barbecue pit. You don't expose yourself to the power
of the wind unless it is mandatory. You don't use and squeeze people until
they have shriveled to nothing, especially the people you love."
"I have never used anyone, " I said sincerely.
But don Juan maintained that I had, and thus I could bluntly state that
I became tired and bored with people.
"To be unavailable means that you deliberately avoid exhausting
yourself and others, " he continued. "It means that you are not hungry and
desperate, like the poor bastard that feels he will never eat again and
devours all the food he can, all five quail!"
Don Juan was definitely hitting me below the belt. I laughed and that
seemed to please him. He touched my back lightly.
"A hunter knows he will lure game into his traps over and over again,
so he doesn't worry. To worry is to become accessible, unwittingly
accessible. And once you worry you cling to anything out of desperation; and
once you cling you are bound to get exhausted or to exhaust whoever or
whatever you are clinging to."
I told him that in my day-to-day life it was inconceivable to be
inaccessible. My point was that in order to function I had to be within
reach of everyone that had something to do with me. "I've told you already
that to be inaccessible does not mean to hide or to be secretive, " he said
calmly. "It doesn't mean that you cannot deal with people either. A hunter
uses his world sparingly and with tenderness, regardless of whether the
world might be things, or plants, or animals, or people, or power. A hunter
deals intimately with his world and yet he is inaccessible to that same
world."
"That's a contradiction, " I said. "He cannot be inaccessible if he is
there in his world, hour after hour, day after day."
"You did not understand, " don Juan said patiently. "He is inaccessible
because he's not squeezing his world out of shape. He taps it lightly, stays
for as long as he needs to, and then swiftly moves away leaving hardly a
mark."
DISRUPTING THE ROUTINES OF LIFE
Sunday July 16, 1961
We spent all morning watching some rodents that looked like fat
squirrels; don Juan called them water rats. He pointed out that they were
very fast in getting out of danger, but after they had outrun any predator
they had the terrible habit of stopping, or even climbing a rock, to stand
on their hind legs to look around and groom themselves.
"They have very good eyes, " don Juan said. "You must move only when
they are on the run, therefore, you must learn to predict when and where
they will stop, so you would also stop at the same time."
I became engrossed in observing them and I had what would have been a
field day for hunters as I spotted so many of them. And finally I could
predict their movements almost every time. Don Juan then showed me how to
make traps to catch them. He explained that a hunter had to take time to
observe their eating or their nesting places in order to determine where to
locate his traps; he would then set them during the night and all he had to
do the next day was to scare them off so they would scatter away into his
catching devices.
We gathered some sticks and proceeded to build the hunting
contraptions. I had mine almost finished and was excitedly wondering whether
or not it would work when suddenly don Juan stopped and looked at his left
wrist, as if he were checking a watch which he had never had, and said that
according to his timepiece it was lunchtime. I was holding a long stick,
which I was trying to make into a hoop by bending it in a circle. I
automatically put it down with the rest of my hunting paraphernalia. Don
Juan looked at me with an expression of curiosity.
Then he made the wailing sound of a factory siren at lunch time. I
laughed. His siren sound was perfect. I walked towards him and noticed that
he was staring at me. He shook his head from side to side.
"I'll be damned, " he said.
"What's wrong?" I asked.
He again made the long wailing sound of a factory whistle.
"Lunch is over, " he said. "Go back to work."
I felt confused for an instant, but then I thought that he was joking,
perhaps because we really had nothing to make lunch with. I had been so
engrossed with the rodents that I had forgotten we had no provisions. I
picked up the stick again and tried to bend it. After a moment don Juan
again blew his "whistle."
"Time to go home, " he said.
He examined his imaginary watch and then looked at me and winked.
"It's five o'clock, " he said with an air of someone revealing a
secret. I thought that he had suddenly become fed up with hunting and was
calling the whole thing off. I simply put everything down and began to get
ready to leave. I did not look at him. I presumed that he also was preparing
his gear.
When I was through I looked up and saw him sitting crosslegged a few
feet away.
"I'm through, " I said. "We can go anytime."
He got up and climbed a rock. He stood there, five or six feet above
the ground, looking at me. He put his hands on either side of his mouth and
made a very prolonged and piercing sound. It was like a magnified factory
siren. He turned around in a complete circle, making the wailing sound.
"What are you doing, don Juan?" I asked.
He said that he was giving the signal for the whole world to go home. I
was completely baffled. I could not figure out whether he was joking or
whether he had simply flipped his lid. I watched him intently and tried to
relate what he was doing to something he may have said before. We had hardly
talked at all during the morning and I could not remember anything of
importance. Don Juan was still standing on top of the rock. He looked at me,
smiled and winked again. I suddenly became alarmed.
Don Juan put his hands on both sides of his mouth and let out another
long whistle-like sound.
He said that it was eight o'clock in the morning and that I had to set
up my gear again because we had a whole day ahead of us.
I was completely confused by then. In a matter of minutes my fear
mounted to an irresistible desire to run away from the scene. I thought don
Juan was crazy. I was about to flee when he slid down from the rock and came
to me, smiling.
"You think I'm crazy, don't you?" he asked.
I told him that he was frightening me out of my wits with his
unexpected behavior.
He said that we were even. I did not understand what he meant. I was
deeply preoccupied with the thought that his acts seemed thoroughly insane.
He explained that he had deliberately tried to scare me out of my wits with
the heaviness of his unexpected behavior because I myself was driving him up
the walls with the heaviness of my expected behavior. He added that my
routines were as insane as his blowing his whistle.
I was shocked and asserted that I did not really have any routines. I
told him that I believed my life was in fact a mess because of my lack of
healthy routines. Don Juan laughed and signaled me to sit down by him. The
whole situation had mysteriously changed again. My fear had vanished as soon
as he had begun to talk.
"What are my routines?" I asked.
"Everything you do is a routine."
"Aren't we all that way?"
"Not all of us. I don't do things out of routine."
"What prompted all this, don Juan? What did I do or what did I say that
made you act the way you did?"
"You were worrying about lunch."'
"I did not say anything to you; how did you know that I was worrying
about lunch?"
"You worry about eating every day around noontime, and around six in
the evening, and around eight in the morning, "
He said with a malicious grin. "You worry about eating at those times
even if you're not hungry.
"All I had to do to show your routine spirit was to blow my whistle.
Your spirit is trained to work with a signal." He stared at me with a
question in his eyes. I could not defend myself.
"Now you're getting ready to make hunting into a routine, " He went on.
"You have already set your pace in hunting, you talk at a certain time, eat
at a certain time, and fall asleep at a certain time."
I had nothing to say. The way don Juan had described my eating habits
was the pattern I used for everything in my life.
Yet I strongly felt that my life was less routine than that of some of
my friends and acquaintances.
"You know a great deal about hunting now, " don Juan continued. "It'll
be easy for you to realize that a good hunter knows one thing above all-he
knows the routines of his prey. That's what makes him a good hunter.
"If you would remember the way I have proceeded in teaching you
hunting, you would perhaps understand what I mean. First I taught you how to
make and set up your traps, then I taught you the routines of the game you
were after, and then we tested the traps against their routines. Those parts
are the outside forms of hunting.
"Now I have to teach you the final, and by far the most difficult,
part. Perhaps years will pass before you can say that you understand it and
that you're a hunter."
Don Juan paused as if to give me time. He took off his hat and imitated
the grooming movements of the rodents we had been observing. It was very
funny to me. His round head made him look like one of those rodents.
"To be a hunter is not just to trap game, " he went on. "A hunter that
is worth his salt does not catch game because he sets his traps, or because
he knows the routines of his prey, but because he himself has no routines.
This is his advantage.
He is not at all like the animals he is after, fixed by heavy routines
and predictable quirks; he is free, fluid, unpredictable."
What don Juan was saying sounded to me like an arbitrary and irrational
idealization. I could not conceive of a life without routines. I wanted to
be very honest with him and not just agree or disagree with him. I felt that
what he had in mind was not possible to accomplish by me or by anyone.
"I don't care how you feel, " he said. "In order to be a hunter you
must disrupt the routines of your life. You have done well in hunting. You
have learned quickly and now you can see that you are like your prey, easy
to predict."
I asked him to be specific and give me concrete examples.
"I am talking about hunting, " he said calmly. "Therefore I am
concerned with the things animals do; the places they eat; the place, the
manner, the time they sleep; where they nest; how they walk. These are the
routines I am pointing out to you so you can become aware of them in your
own being.
"You have observed the habits of animals in the desert. They eat or
drink at certain places, they nest at specific spots, they leave their
tracks in specific ways; in fact, everything they do can be foreseen or
reconstructed by a good hunter.
"As I told you before, in my eyes you behave like your prey. Once in my
life someone pointed out the same thing to me, so you're not unique in that.
All of us behave like the prey we are after. That, of course, also makes us
prey for something or someone else. Now, the concern of a hunter, who knows
all this, is to stop being a prey himself. Do you see what I mean?" I again
expressed the opinion that his proposition was unattainable.
"It takes time, " don Juan said. "You could begin by not eating lunch
every single day at twelve o'clock." He looked at me and smiled
benevolently. His expression was very funny and made me laugh. "There are
certain animals, however, that are impossible to track, " he went on. "There
are certain types of deer, for instance, which a fortunate hunter might be
able to come across, by sheer luck, once in his lifetime."
Don Juan paused dramatically and looked at me piercingly. He seemed to
be waiting for a question, but I did not have any.
"What do you think makes them so difficult to find and so unique?" he
asked.
I shrugged my shoulders because I did not know what to say.
"They have no routines, " he said in a tone of revelation.
"That's what makes them magical." "A deer has to sleep at night, " I
said. "Isn't that a routine?"
"Certainly, if the deer sleeps every night at a specific time and in
one specific place. But those magical beings do not behave like that. In
fact, someday you may verify this for yourself. Perhaps it'll be your fate
to chase one of them for the rest of your life."
"What do you mean by that?"
"You like hunting; perhaps someday, in some place in the world, your
path may cross the path of a magical being and you might go after it.
"A magical being is a sight to behold. I was fortunate enough to cross
paths with one. Our encounter took place after I had learned and practiced a
great deal of hunting. Once I was in a forest of thick trees in the
mountains of central Mexico when suddenly I heard a sweet whistle. It was
unknown to me; never in all my years of roaming in the wilderness had I
heard such a sound. I could not place it in the terrain; it seemed to come
from different places. I thought that perhaps I was surrounded by a herd or
a pack of some unknown animals.
"I heard the tantalizing whistle once more; it seemed to come from
everywhere. I realized then my good fortune. I knew it was a magical being,
a deer. I also knew that a magical deer is aware of the routines of ordinary
men and the routines of hunters.
"It is very easy to figure out what an average man would do in a
situation like that. First of all his fear would immediately turn him into a
prey. Once he becomes a prey he has two courses of action left. He either
flees or he makes his stand. If he is not armed he would ordinarily flee
into the open field to run for his life. If he is armed he would get his
weapon ready and would then make his stand either by freezing on the spot or
by dropping to the ground.
"A hunter, on the other hand, when he stalks in the wilderness would
never walk into any place without figuring out his points of protection,
therefore he would immediately take cover. He might drop his poncho on the
ground or he might hang it from a branch as a decoy and then he would hide
and wait until the game makes its next move.
"So, in the presence of the magical deer I didn't behave like either. I
quickly stood on my head and began to wail softly; I actually wept tears and
sobbed for such a long time that I was about to faint. Suddenly I felt a
soft breeze; something was sniffing my hair behind my right ear. I tried to
turn my head in sec what it was, and I tumbled down and sat up in time to
see a radiant creature staring at me. The deer looked at me and I told him I
would not harm him. And the deer talked to me. Don Juan stopped and looked
at me. I smiled involuntarily. The idea of a talking deer was quite
incredible, to put it mildly. "He talked to me, " don Juan said with a grin.
"The deer talked?"
"He did."
Don Juan stood and picked up his bundle of hunting paraphernalia.
"Did it really talk?" I asked in a tone of perplexity.
Don Juan roared with laughter.
"What did it say?" I asked half in jest.
I thought he was pulling my leg. Don Juan was quiet for a moment, as if
he were trying to remember, then his eyes brightened as he told me what the
deer had said.
"The magical deer said, 'Hello friend.', don Juan went on.
"And I answered, 'Hello.' Then he asked me, 'Why are you crying?' and I
said, 'Because I'm sad.' Then the magical creature came to my ear and said
as clearly as I am speaking now, 'Don't be sad.'"
Don Juan stared into my eyes. He had a glint of sheer mischievous ness.
He began to laugh uproariously. I said that his dialogue with the deer had
been sort of dumb. "What did you expect?" he asked, still laughing. "I'm an
Indian."
His sense of humor was so outlandish that all I could do was laugh with
him.
"You don't believe that a magical deer talks, do you?"
"I'm sorry but I just can't believe things like that can happen, " I
said.
"I don't blame you, " he said reassuringly. "It's one of the darndest
things."
THE LAST BATTLE ON EARTH
Monday, July 24, 1961
Around mid-afternoon, after we had roamed for hours in the desert, don
Juan chose a place to rest in a shaded area. As soon as we sat down he began
talking. He said that I had learned a great deal about hunting, but I had
not changed as much as he had wished.
"It's not enough to know how to make and set up traps, " he said. "A
hunter must live as a hunter in order to draw the most out of his life.
Unfortunately, changes are difficult and happen very slowly; sometimes it
takes years for a man to become convinced of the need to change. It took me
years, but maybe I didn't have a knack for hunting. I think for me the most
difficult thing was to really want to change."
I assured him that I understood his point. In fact, since he had begun
to teach me how to hunt I also had begun to reassess my actions. Perhaps the
most dramatic discovery for me was that I liked don Juan's ways. I liked don
Juan as a person.
There was something solid about his behavior; the way he conducted
himself left no doubts about his mastery, and yet He had never exercised his
advantage to demand anything from me. His interest in changing my way of
life, I felt, was akin to an impersonal suggestion, or perhaps it was akin
to an authoritative commentary on my failures. He had made me very aware of
my failings, yet I could not see how his ways would remedy anything in me. I
sincerely believed that, in light of what I wanted to do in my life, his
ways would have only brought me misery and hardship, hence the impasse.
However, I had learned to respect his mastery, which had always been
expressed in terms of beauty and precision.
"I have decided to shift my tactics, " he said.
I asked him to explain; his statement was vague and I was not sure
whether or not he was referring to me. "A good hunter changes his ways as
often as he needs, " he replied. "You know that yourself."
"What do you have in mind, don Juan?"
"A hunter must not only know about the habits of his prey, he also must
know that there are powers on this earth that guide men and animals and
everything that is living."
He stopped talking. I waited but he seemed to have come to the end of
what he wanted to say.
"What kind of powers are you talking about?" I asked after a long
pause.
"Powers that guide our lives and our deaths."
Don Juan stopped talking and seemed to be having tremendous difficulty
in deciding what to say. He rubbed his hands and shook his head, puffing out
his jaws. Twice he signaled me to be quiet as I started to ask him to
explain his cryptic statements.
"You won't be able to stop yourself easily, " he finally said.
"I know that you're stubborn, but that doesn't matter. The more
stubborn you are the better it'll be when you finally succeed in changing
yourself."
"I am trying my best, " I said.
"No. I disagree. You're not trying your best. You just said that
because it sounds good to you; in fact, you've been saying the same thing
about everything you do. You've been trying your best for years to no avail.
Something must be done to remedy that."
I felt compelled, as usual, to defend myself. Don Juan seemed to aim,
as a rule, at my very weakest points. I remembered then that every time I
had attempted to defend myself against his criticisms I had ended up feeling
like a fool, and I stopped myself in the midst of a long explanatory speech.
Don Juan examined me with curiosity and laughed. He said in a very kind
tone that he had already told me that all of us were fools. I was not an
exception.
"You always feel compelled to explain your acts, as if you were the
only man on earth who's wrong, " he said. "It's your old feeling of
importance. You have too much of it; you also have too much personal
history. On the other hand, you don't assume responsibility for your acts;
you're not using your death as an adviser, and above all, you are too
accessible. In other words, your life is as messy as it was before I met
you."
Again I had a genuine surge of pride and wanted to argue that he was
wrong. He gestured me to be quiet.
"One must assume responsibility for being in a weird world, " he said.
"We are in a weird world, you know."
I nodded my head affirmatively. "We're not talking about the same
thing, " he said. "For you the world is weird because if you're not bored
with it you're at odds with it. For me the world is weird because it is
stupendous, awesome, mysterious, unfathomable; my interest has been to
convince you that you must assume responsibility for being here, in this
marvelous world, in this marvelous desert, in this marvelous time. I wanted
to convince you that you must learn to make every act count, since you are
going to be here for only a short while, in fact, too short for witnessing
all the marvels of it."
I insisted that to be bored with the world or to be at odds with it was
the human condition. "So, change it, " he replied dryly. "If you do not
respond to that challenge you are as good as dead."
He dared me to name an issue, an item in my life that had engaged all
my thoughts. I said art. I had always wanted to be an artist and for years I
had tried my hand at that. I still had the painful memory of my failure.
"You have never taken the responsibility for being in this unfathomable
world, " he said in an indicting tone. "Therefore, you were never an artist,
and perhaps you'll never be a hunter."
"This is my best, don Juan."
"No. You don't know what your best is."
"I am doing all I can."
"You're wrong again. You can do better. There is one simple thing wrong
with you-you think you have plenty of time." He paused and looked at me as
if waiting for my reaction.
"You think you have plenty of time," he repeated.
"Plenty of time for what, don Juan?"
"You think your life is going to last forever."
"No. I don't."
"Then, if you don't think your life is going to last forever, what are
you waiting for? Why the hesitation to change?"
"Has it ever occurred to you, don Juan, that I may not want to change?"
"Yes, it has occurred to me. I did not want to change either, just like
you. However, I didn't like my life; I was tired of it, just like you. Now I
don't have enough of it."
I vehemently asserted that his insistence about changing my way of life
was frightening and arbitrary. I said that I really agreed with him, at a
certain level, but the mere fact that he was always the master that called
the shots made the situation untenable for me.
"You don't have time for this display, you fool, " he said in a severe
tone. "This, whatever you're doing now, may be your last act on earth. It
may very well be your last battle.
There is no power which could guarantee that you are going to live one
more minute."
"I know that, " I said with contained anger.
"No. You don't. If you knew that you would be a hunter." I contended
that I was aware of my impending death but it was useless to talk or think
about it, since I could not do anything to avoid it. Don Juan laughed and
said I was like a comedian going mechanically through a routine.
"If this were your last battle on earth, I would say that you are an
idiot, " he said calmly. "You are wasting your last act on earth in some
stupid mood."
We were quiet for a moment. My thoughts ran rampant. He was right, of
course. "You have no time, my friend, no time. None of us have time, " he
said. "I agree, don Juan, but-"
"Don't just agree with me, " he snapped. "You must, instead of agreeing
so easily, act upon it. Take the challenge. Change."
"Just like that?"
"That's right. The change I'm talking about never takes place by
degrees; it happens suddenly. And you are not preparing yourself for that
sudden act that will bring a total change."
I believed he was expressing a contradiction. I explained to him that
if I were preparing myself to change I was certainly changing by degrees.
"You haven't changed at all, " he said. "That is why you believe you're
changing little by little. Yet, perhaps you will surprise yourself someday
by changing suddenly and without a single warning. I know this is so, and
thus I don't lose sight of my interest in convincing you." I could not
persist in my arguing. I was not sure of what I really wanted to say. After
a moment's pause don Juan went on explaining his point.
"Perhaps I should put it in a different way, " he said. "What I
recommend you to do is to notice that we do not have any assurance that our
lives will go on indefinitely. I have just said that change comes suddenly
and unexpectedly, and so does death. What do you think we can do about it?"
I thought he was asking a rhetorical question, but he made a gesture
with his eyebrows urging me to answer.
"To live as happily as possible, " I said.
"Right! But do you know anyone who lives happily?"
My first impulse was to say yes; I thought I could use a number of
people I knew as examples. On second thought, however, I knew my effort
would only be an empty attempt at exonerating myself.
"No, " I said. "I really don't."
"I do, " don Juan said. "There are some people who are very careful
about the nature of their acts. Their happiness is to act with the full
knowledge that they don't have time; therefore, their acts have a peculiar
power; their acts have a sense of . . ."
Don Juan seemed to be at a loss for words. He scratched his temples and
smiled. Then suddenly he stood up as if he were through with our
conversation. I beseeched him to finish what he was telling me. He sat down
and puckered up his lips.
"Acts have power, " he said. "Especially when the person acting knows
that those acts are his last battle. There is a strange consuming happiness
in acting with the full knowledge that whatever one is doing may very well
be one's last act on earth. I recommend that you reconsider your life and
bring your acts into that light."
I disagreed with him. Happiness for me was to assume that there was an
inherent continuity to my acts and that I would be able to continue doing,
at will, whatever I was doing at the moment, especially if I was enjoying
it. I told him that my disagreement was not a banal one but stemmed from the
conviction that the world and myself had a determinable continuity. Don Juan
seemed to be amused by my efforts to make sense. He laughed, shook his head,
scratched his hair, and finally when I talked about a "determinable
continuity" threw his hat to the ground and stomped on it.
I ended up laughing at his clowning. "You don't have time, my friend, "
he said. "That is the misfortune of human beings. None of us have sufficient
time, and your continuity has no meaning in this awesome, mysterious world.
"Your continuity only makes you timid, " he said. "Your acts cannot possibly
have the flair, the power, the compelling force of the acts performed by a
man who knows that he is fighting his last battle on earth. In other words,
your continuity does not make you happy or powerful." I admitted that I was
afraid of thinking I was going to die and I accused him of causing great
apprehension in me with his constant talk and concern about death.
"But we are all going to die, " he said.
He pointed towards some hills in the distance.
"There is something out there waiting for me, for sure; and I will join
it, also for sure. But perhaps you're different and death is not waiting for
you at all."
He laughed at my gesture of despair.
"I don't want to think about it, don Juan."
"Why not?"
"It is meaningless. If it is out there waiting for me why should I
worry about it?"
"I didn't say that you have to worry about it."
"What am I supposed to do then?"
"Use it. Focus your attention on the link between you and your death,
without remorse or sadness or worrying. Focus your attention on the fact you
don't have time and let your acts flow accordingly. Let each of your acts be
your last battle on earth. Only under those conditions will your acts have
their rightful power. Otherwise they will be, for as long as you live, the
acts of a timid man."
"Is it so terrible to be a timid man?"
"No. It isn't if you are going to be immortal, but if you are going to
die there is no time for timidity, simply because timidity makes you cling
to something that exists only in your thoughts. It soothes you while
everything is at a lull, but then the awesome, mysterious world will open
its mouth for you, as it will open for every one of us, and then you will
realize that your sure ways were not sure at all. Being timid prevents us
from examining and exploiting our lot as men."
"It is not natural to live with the constant idea of our death, don
Juan."
"Our death is waiting and this very act we're performing now may well
be our last battle on earth, " he replied in a solemn voice. "I call it a
battle because it is a struggle. Most people move from act to act without
any struggle or thought. A hunter, on the contrary, assesses every act; and
since he has an intimate knowledge of his death, he proceeds judiciously, as
if every act were his last battle. Only a fool would fail to notice the
advantage a hunter has over his fellow men. A hunter gives his last battle
its due respect. It's only natural that his last act on earth should be the
best of himself. It's pleasurable that way. It dulls the edge of his
fright."
"You are right, " I conceded. "It's just hard to accept."
"It'll take years for you to convince yourself and then it'll take
years for you to act accordingly. I only hope you have time left."
"I get scared when you say that, " I said.
Don Juan examined me with a serious expression on his face.
"I've told you, this is a weird world, " he said. "The forces that
guide men are unpredictable, awesome, yet their splendor is something to
witness."
He stopped talking and looked at me again. He seemed to be on the verge
of revealing something to me, but he checked himself and smiled.
"Is there something that guides us?" I asked.
"Certainly. There are powers that guide us."
"Can you describe them?"
"Not really, except to call them forces, spirits, airs, winds, or
anything like that."
I wanted to probe him further, but before I could ask anything else he
stood up. I stared at him, flabbergasted. He had stood up in one single
movement; his body simply jerked up and he was on his feet.
I was still pondering upon the unusual skill that would be needed in
order to move with such speed when he told me in a dry tone of command to
stalk a rabbit, catch it, kill it, skin it, and roast the meat before the
twilight.
He looked up at the sky and said that I might have enough time.
I automatically started off, proceeding the way I had done scores of
times. Don Juan walked beside me and followed my movements with a
scrutinizing look. I was very calm and moved carefully and I had no trouble
at all in catching a male rabbit.
"Now kill it, " don Juan said dryly.
I reached into the trap to grab hold of the rabbit. I had it by the
ears and was pulling it out when a sudden sensation of terror invaded me.
For the first time since don Juan had begun to teach me to hunt it occurred
to me that he had never taught me how to kill game. In the scores of times
we had roamed in the desert he himself had only killed one rabbit, two quail
and one rattlesnake.
I dropped the rabbit and looked at don Juan.
"I can't kill it, " I said.
"Why not?"
"I've never done that."
"But you've killed hundreds of birds and other animals."
"With a gun, not with my bare hands."
"What difference does it make? This rabbit's time is up."
Don Juan's tone shocked me; it was so authoritative, so knowledgeable,
it left no doubts in my mind that he knew that the rabbit's time was up.
"Kill it!" he commanded with a ferocious look in his eyes.
"I can't."
He yelled at me that the rabbit had to die. He said that its roaming in
that beautiful desert had come to an end. I had no business stalling,
because the power or the spirit that guides rabbits had led that particular
one into my trap, right at the edge of the twilight.
A series of confusing thoughts and feelings overtook me, as if the
feelings had been out there waiting for me. I felt with agonizing clarity
the rabbit's tragedy, to have fallen into my trap. In a matter of seconds my
mind swept across the most crucial moments of my own life, the many times I
had been the rabbit myself.
I looked at it, and it looked at me. The rabbit had backed up against
the side of the cage; it was almost curled up, very quiet and motionless. We
exchanged a somber glance, and that glance, which I fancied to be of silent
despair, cemented a complete identification on my part. "The hell with it, "
I said loudly. "I won't kill anything. That rabbit goes free."
A profound emotion made me shiver. My arms trembled as I tried to grab
the rabbit by the ears; it moved fast and I missed. I again tried and
fumbled once more. I became desperate. I had the sensation of nausea and
quickly kicked the trap in order to smash it and let the rabbit go free. The
cage was unsuspectedly strong and did not break as I thought it would. My
despair mounted to an unbearable feeling of anguish. Using all my strength,
I stomped on the edge of the cage with my right foot. The sticks cracked
loudly. I pulled the rabbit out. I had a moment of relief, which was
shattered to bits in the next instant. The rabbit hung limp in my hand. It
was dead. I did not know what to do. I became preoccupied with finding out
how it had died. I turned to don Juan. He was
staring at me. A feeling of terror sent a chill through my body.
I sat down by some rocks. I had a terrible headache. Don Juan put his
hand on my head and whispered in my ear that I had to skin the rabbit and
roast it before the twilight was over.
I felt nauseated. He very patiently talked to me as if he were talking
to a child. He said that the powers that guided men or animals had led that
particular rabbit to me, in the same way they will lead me to my own death.
He said the rabbit's death had been a gift for me in exactly the same way my
own death will be a gift for something or someone else.
I was dizzy. The simple events of that day had crushed me. I tried to
think that it was only a rabbit; I could not, however, shake off the uncanny
identification I had had with it.
Don Juan said that I needed to eat some of its meat, if only morsel, in
order to validate my finding.
"I can't do that, " I protested meekly.
"We are dregs in the hands of those forces, " he snapped at me. "So
stop your self-importance and use this gift properly." I picked up the
rabbit; it was warm.
Don Juan leaned over and whispered in my ear, "Your trap was his last
battle on earth. I told you, he had no more time to roam in this marvelous
desert."
BECOMING ACCESSIBLE TO POWER
Thursday, August 11, 1961
As soon as I got out of my car I complained to don Juan that I was not
feeling well.
"Sit down, sit down, " he said softly and almost led me by the hand to
his porch. He smiled and patted me on the back.
Two weeks before, on August 4th, don Juan, as he had said, changed his
tactics with me and allowed me to ingest some peyote buttons. During the
height of my hallucinatory experience I played with a dog that lived in the
house where the peyote session took place. Don Juan interpreted my
interaction with the dog as a very special event. He contended that at
moments of power, such as the one I had been living then, the world of
ordinary affairs did not exist and nothing could be taken for granted, that
the dog was not really a dog but the incarnation of Mescalito, the power or
deity contained in peyote.
The post-effects of that experience were a general sense of fatigue and
melancholy, plus the incidence of exceptionally vivid dreams and nightmares.
"Where's your writing gear?" don Juan asked as I sat down on the porch.
I had left my notebooks in my car. Don Juan walked back to the car and
carefully pulled out my briefcase and brought it to my side.
He asked if I usually carried my briefcase when I walked. I said I did.
"That's madness, " he said. "I've told you never to carry anything in
your hands when you walk. Get a knapsack."
I laughed. The idea of carrying my notes in a knapsack was ludicrous. I
told him that ordinarily I wore a suit and a knapsack over a three-piece
that, and acts accordingly."
"How does he act?"
"He uses the twilight and that power hidden in the wind."
"How?"
"If it is convenient to him, the hunter hides from the power by
covering himself and remaining motionless until the twilight is gone and the
power has sealed him into its protection."
Don Juan made a gesture of enveloping something with his hands.
"Its protection is like a ..."
He paused in search of a word and I suggested "cocoon."
"That is right, " he said. "The protection of the power seals you like
in a cocoon. A hunter can stay out in the open and no puma or coyote or
slimy bug could bother him. A mountain lion could come up to the hunter's
nose and sniff him, and if the hunter does not move, the lion would leave. I
can guarantee you that.
"If the hunter, on the other hand, wants to be noticed all he has to do
is to stand on a hilltop at the time of the twilight and the power will nag
him and seek him all night. Therefore, if a hunter wants to travel at night
or if he wants to be kept awake he must make himself available to the wind.
"Therein lies the secret of great hunters. To be available and
unavailable at the precise turn of the road."
I felt a bit confused and asked him to recapitulate his point.
Don Juan very patiently explained that he had used the twilight and the
wind to point out the crucial importance of the interplay between hiding and
showing oneself.
"You must learn to become deliberately available and unavailable, " he
said. "As your life goes now, you are unwittingly available at all times."
I protested. My feeling was that my life was becoming increasingly more
and more secretive. He said I had not understood his point, and that to be
unavailable did not mean to hide or to be secretive but to be inaccessible.
"Let me put it in another way, " he proceeded patiently. "It makes no
difference to hide if everyone knows that you are hiding.
"Your problems right now stem from that. When you are hiding, everyone
knows that you are hiding, and when you are not, you are available for
everyone to take a poke at you."
I was beginning to feel threatened and hurriedly tried to defend
myself. "Don't explain yourself, "don Juan said dryly. "There is no need. We
are fools, all of us, and you cannot be different. At one time in my life I,
like you, made myself available over and over again until there was nothing
of me left for anything except perhaps crying. And that I did, just like
yourself."
Don Juan sized me up for a moment and then sighed loudly.
"I was younger than you, though, " he went on, "but one day I had
enough and I changed. Let's say that one day, when I was becoming a hunter,
I learned the secret of being available and unavailable."
I told him that his point was bypassing me. I truly could not
understand what he meant by being available. He had used the Spanish idioms
"ponerse al alcance" and "ponerse en el del camino, "to put oneself within
reach, and to put oneself in the middle of a trafficked way.
"You must take yourself away, " he explained. "You must retrieve
yourself from the middle of a trafficked way. Your whole being is there,
thus it is of no use to hide; you would only imagine that you are hidden.
Being in the middle of the road means that everyone passing by watches your
comings and goings."
His metaphor was interesting, but at the same time it was also obscure.
"You are talking in riddles, " I said.
He stared at me fixedly for a long moment and then began to hum a tune.
I straightened my back and sat attentively. I knew that when don Juan hummed
a Mexican tune he was about to clobber me.
"Hey, " he said, smiling, and peered at me. "Whatever happened to your
blond friend? That girl that you used to really like." I must have looked at
him like a confounded idiot. He laughed with great delight. I did not know
what to say.
"You told me about her, " he said reassuringly.
"But I did not remember ever telling him about anybody, much less about
a blond girl.
"I've never mentioned anything like that to you, " I said.
"Of course you have, " he said as if dismissing the argument.
I wanted to protest, but he stopped me, saying that it did not matter
how he knew about her, that the important issue was that I had liked her.
I sensed a surge of animosity towards him building up within myself.
"Don't stall, " don Juan said dryly. "This is a time when you should
cut off your feelings of importance.
"You once had a woman, a very dear woman, and then one day you lost
her."
I began to wonder if I had ever talked about her to don. Juan. I
concluded that there had never been an opportunity.
Yet I might have. Every time he drove with me we had always talked
incessantly about everything. I did not remember everything we had talked
about because I could not take notes while driving. I felt somehow appeased
by my conclusions. I told him that he was right. There had been a very
important blond girl in my life.
"Why isn't she with you?" he asked.
"She left."
"Why?"
"There were many reasons;"
"There were not so many reasons. There was only one.
You made yourself too available."
I earnestly wanted to know what he meant. He again had touched me. He
seemed to be cognizant of the effect of his touch and puckered up his lips
to hide a mischievous smile.
"Everyone knew about you two, " he said with unshaken conviction.
"Was it wrong?"
"It was deadly wrong. She was a fine person."
I expressed the sincere feeling that his fishing in the dark was odious
to me, especially the fact that he always made his statements with the
assurance of someone who had been at the scene and had seen it all.
"But that's true, " he said with a disarming candor. "I have seen it
all. She was a fine person."
I knew that it was meaningless to argue, but I was angry with him for
touching that sore spot in my life and I said that the girl in question was
not such a fine person after all, that in my opinion she was rather weak.
"So are you, " he said calmly. "But that is not important. What counts
is that you have looked for her everywhere; that makes her a special person
in your world, and for a special person one should have only fine words."
I felt embarrassed; a great sadness had begun to engulf me.
"What are you doing to me, don Juan?" I asked. "You always succeed in
making me sad. Why?"
"You are now indulging in sentimentality, " he said accusingly.
"What is the point of all this, don Juan?"
"Being inaccessible is the point, " he declared. "I brought up the
memory of this person only as a means to show you directly what I couldn't
show you with the wind.
"You lost her because you were accessible; you were always within her
reach and your life was a routine one."
"No!" I said. "You're wrong. My life was never a routine."
"It was and it is a routine, " he said dogmatically. "It is an unusual
routine and that gives you the impression that it is not a routine, but I
assure you it is."
I wanted to sulk and get lost in moroseness, but somehow his eyes made
me feel restless; they seemed to push me on and on.
"The art of a hunter is to become inaccessible, " he said. "In the case
of that blond girl it would've meant that you had to become a hunter and
meet her sparingly. Not the way you did. You stayed with her day after day,
until the only feeling that remained was boredom. True?" I did not answer. I
felt I did not have to. He was right.
"To be inaccessible means that you touch the world around you
sparingly. You don't eat five quail; you eat one. You don't damage the
plants just to make a barbecue pit. You don't expose yourself to the power
of the wind unless it is mandatory. You don't use and squeeze people until
they have shriveled to nothing, especially the people you love."
"I have never used anyone, " I said sincerely.
But don Juan maintained that I had, and thus I could bluntly state that
I became tired and bored with people.
"To be unavailable means that you deliberately avoid exhausting
yourself and others, " he continued. "It means that you are not hungry and
desperate, like the poor bastard that feels he will never eat again and
devours all the food he can, all five quail!"
Don Juan was definitely hitting me below the belt. I laughed and that
seemed to please him. He touched my back lightly.
"A hunter knows he will lure game into his traps over and over again,
so he doesn't worry. To worry is to become accessible, unwittingly
accessible. And once you worry you cling to anything out of desperation; and
once you cling you are bound to get exhausted or to exhaust whoever or
whatever you are clinging to."
I told him that in my day-to-day life it was inconceivable to be
inaccessible. My point was that in order to function I had to be within
reach of everyone that had something to do with me. "I've told you already
that to be inaccessible does not mean to hide or to be secretive, " he said
calmly. "It doesn't mean that you cannot deal with people either. A hunter
uses his world sparingly and with tenderness, regardless of whether the
world might be things, or plants, or animals, or people, or power. A hunter
deals intimately with his world and yet he is inaccessible to that same
world."
"That's a contradiction, " I said. "He cannot be inaccessible if he is
there in his world, hour after hour, day after day."
"You did not understand, " don Juan said patiently. "He is inaccessible
because he's not squeezing his world out of shape. He taps it lightly, stays
for as long as he needs to, and then swiftly moves away leaving hardly a
mark."
DISRUPTING THE ROUTINES OF LIFE
Sunday July 16, 1961
We spent all morning watching some rodents that looked like fat
squirrels; don Juan called them water rats. He pointed out that they were
very fast in getting out of danger, but after they had outrun any predator
they had the terrible habit of stopping, or even climbing a rock, to stand
on their hind legs to look around and groom themselves.
"They have very good eyes, " don Juan said. "You must move only when
they are on the run, therefore, you must learn to predict when and where
they will stop, so you would also stop at the same time."
I became engrossed in observing them and I had what would have been a
field day for hunters as I spotted so many of them. And finally I could
predict their movements almost every time. Don Juan then showed me how to
make traps to catch them. He explained that a hunter had to take time to
observe their eating or their nesting places in order to determine where to
locate his traps; he would then set them during the night and all he had to
do the next day was to scare them off so they would scatter away into his
catching devices.
We gathered some sticks and proceeded to build the hunting
contraptions. I had mine almost finished and was excitedly wondering whether
or not it would work when suddenly don Juan stopped and looked at his left
wrist, as if he were checking a watch which he had never had, and said that
according to his timepiece it was lunchtime. I was holding a long stick,
which I was trying to make into a hoop by bending it in a circle. I
automatically put it down with the rest of my hunting paraphernalia. Don
Juan looked at me with an expression of curiosity.
Then he made the wailing sound of a factory siren at lunch time. I
laughed. His siren sound was perfect. I walked towards him and noticed that
he was staring at me. He shook his head from side to side.
"I'll be damned, " he said.
"What's wrong?" I asked.
He again made the long wailing sound of a factory whistle.
"Lunch is over, " he said. "Go back to work."
I felt confused for an instant, but then I thought that he was joking,
perhaps because we really had nothing to make lunch with. I had been so
engrossed with the rodents that I had forgotten we had no provisions. I
picked up the stick again and tried to bend it. After a moment don Juan
again blew his "whistle."
"Time to go home, " he said.
He examined his imaginary watch and then looked at me and winked.
"It's five o'clock, " he said with an air of someone revealing a
secret. I thought that he had suddenly become fed up with hunting and was
calling the whole thing off. I simply put everything down and began to get
ready to leave. I did not look at him. I presumed that he also was preparing
his gear.
When I was through I looked up and saw him sitting crosslegged a few
feet away.
"I'm through, " I said. "We can go anytime."
He got up and climbed a rock. He stood there, five or six feet above
the ground, looking at me. He put his hands on either side of his mouth and
made a very prolonged and piercing sound. It was like a magnified factory
siren. He turned around in a complete circle, making the wailing sound.
"What are you doing, don Juan?" I asked.
He said that he was giving the signal for the whole world to go home. I
was completely baffled. I could not figure out whether he was joking or
whether he had simply flipped his lid. I watched him intently and tried to
relate what he was doing to something he may have said before. We had hardly
talked at all during the morning and I could not remember anything of
importance. Don Juan was still standing on top of the rock. He looked at me,
smiled and winked again. I suddenly became alarmed.
Don Juan put his hands on both sides of his mouth and let out another
long whistle-like sound.
He said that it was eight o'clock in the morning and that I had to set
up my gear again because we had a whole day ahead of us.
I was completely confused by then. In a matter of minutes my fear
mounted to an irresistible desire to run away from the scene. I thought don
Juan was crazy. I was about to flee when he slid down from the rock and came
to me, smiling.
"You think I'm crazy, don't you?" he asked.
I told him that he was frightening me out of my wits with his
unexpected behavior.
He said that we were even. I did not understand what he meant. I was
deeply preoccupied with the thought that his acts seemed thoroughly insane.
He explained that he had deliberately tried to scare me out of my wits with
the heaviness of his unexpected behavior because I myself was driving him up
the walls with the heaviness of my expected behavior. He added that my
routines were as insane as his blowing his whistle.
I was shocked and asserted that I did not really have any routines. I
told him that I believed my life was in fact a mess because of my lack of
healthy routines. Don Juan laughed and signaled me to sit down by him. The
whole situation had mysteriously changed again. My fear had vanished as soon
as he had begun to talk.
"What are my routines?" I asked.
"Everything you do is a routine."
"Aren't we all that way?"
"Not all of us. I don't do things out of routine."
"What prompted all this, don Juan? What did I do or what did I say that
made you act the way you did?"
"You were worrying about lunch."'
"I did not say anything to you; how did you know that I was worrying
about lunch?"
"You worry about eating every day around noontime, and around six in
the evening, and around eight in the morning, "
He said with a malicious grin. "You worry about eating at those times
even if you're not hungry.
"All I had to do to show your routine spirit was to blow my whistle.
Your spirit is trained to work with a signal." He stared at me with a
question in his eyes. I could not defend myself.
"Now you're getting ready to make hunting into a routine, " He went on.
"You have already set your pace in hunting, you talk at a certain time, eat
at a certain time, and fall asleep at a certain time."
I had nothing to say. The way don Juan had described my eating habits
was the pattern I used for everything in my life.
Yet I strongly felt that my life was less routine than that of some of
my friends and acquaintances.
"You know a great deal about hunting now, " don Juan continued. "It'll
be easy for you to realize that a good hunter knows one thing above all-he
knows the routines of his prey. That's what makes him a good hunter.
"If you would remember the way I have proceeded in teaching you
hunting, you would perhaps understand what I mean. First I taught you how to
make and set up your traps, then I taught you the routines of the game you
were after, and then we tested the traps against their routines. Those parts
are the outside forms of hunting.
"Now I have to teach you the final, and by far the most difficult,
part. Perhaps years will pass before you can say that you understand it and
that you're a hunter."
Don Juan paused as if to give me time. He took off his hat and imitated
the grooming movements of the rodents we had been observing. It was very
funny to me. His round head made him look like one of those rodents.
"To be a hunter is not just to trap game, " he went on. "A hunter that
is worth his salt does not catch game because he sets his traps, or because
he knows the routines of his prey, but because he himself has no routines.
This is his advantage.
He is not at all like the animals he is after, fixed by heavy routines
and predictable quirks; he is free, fluid, unpredictable."
What don Juan was saying sounded to me like an arbitrary and irrational
idealization. I could not conceive of a life without routines. I wanted to
be very honest with him and not just agree or disagree with him. I felt that
what he had in mind was not possible to accomplish by me or by anyone.
"I don't care how you feel, " he said. "In order to be a hunter you
must disrupt the routines of your life. You have done well in hunting. You
have learned quickly and now you can see that you are like your prey, easy
to predict."
I asked him to be specific and give me concrete examples.
"I am talking about hunting, " he said calmly. "Therefore I am
concerned with the things animals do; the places they eat; the place, the
manner, the time they sleep; where they nest; how they walk. These are the
routines I am pointing out to you so you can become aware of them in your
own being.
"You have observed the habits of animals in the desert. They eat or
drink at certain places, they nest at specific spots, they leave their
tracks in specific ways; in fact, everything they do can be foreseen or
reconstructed by a good hunter.
"As I told you before, in my eyes you behave like your prey. Once in my
life someone pointed out the same thing to me, so you're not unique in that.
All of us behave like the prey we are after. That, of course, also makes us
prey for something or someone else. Now, the concern of a hunter, who knows
all this, is to stop being a prey himself. Do you see what I mean?" I again
expressed the opinion that his proposition was unattainable.
"It takes time, " don Juan said. "You could begin by not eating lunch
every single day at twelve o'clock." He looked at me and smiled
benevolently. His expression was very funny and made me laugh. "There are
certain animals, however, that are impossible to track, " he went on. "There
are certain types of deer, for instance, which a fortunate hunter might be
able to come across, by sheer luck, once in his lifetime."
Don Juan paused dramatically and looked at me piercingly. He seemed to
be waiting for a question, but I did not have any.
"What do you think makes them so difficult to find and so unique?" he
asked.
I shrugged my shoulders because I did not know what to say.
"They have no routines, " he said in a tone of revelation.
"That's what makes them magical." "A deer has to sleep at night, " I
said. "Isn't that a routine?"
"Certainly, if the deer sleeps every night at a specific time and in
one specific place. But those magical beings do not behave like that. In
fact, someday you may verify this for yourself. Perhaps it'll be your fate
to chase one of them for the rest of your life."
"What do you mean by that?"
"You like hunting; perhaps someday, in some place in the world, your
path may cross the path of a magical being and you might go after it.
"A magical being is a sight to behold. I was fortunate enough to cross
paths with one. Our encounter took place after I had learned and practiced a
great deal of hunting. Once I was in a forest of thick trees in the
mountains of central Mexico when suddenly I heard a sweet whistle. It was
unknown to me; never in all my years of roaming in the wilderness had I
heard such a sound. I could not place it in the terrain; it seemed to come
from different places. I thought that perhaps I was surrounded by a herd or
a pack of some unknown animals.
"I heard the tantalizing whistle once more; it seemed to come from
everywhere. I realized then my good fortune. I knew it was a magical being,
a deer. I also knew that a magical deer is aware of the routines of ordinary
men and the routines of hunters.
"It is very easy to figure out what an average man would do in a
situation like that. First of all his fear would immediately turn him into a
prey. Once he becomes a prey he has two courses of action left. He either
flees or he makes his stand. If he is not armed he would ordinarily flee
into the open field to run for his life. If he is armed he would get his
weapon ready and would then make his stand either by freezing on the spot or
by dropping to the ground.
"A hunter, on the other hand, when he stalks in the wilderness would
never walk into any place without figuring out his points of protection,
therefore he would immediately take cover. He might drop his poncho on the
ground or he might hang it from a branch as a decoy and then he would hide
and wait until the game makes its next move.
"So, in the presence of the magical deer I didn't behave like either. I
quickly stood on my head and began to wail softly; I actually wept tears and
sobbed for such a long time that I was about to faint. Suddenly I felt a
soft breeze; something was sniffing my hair behind my right ear. I tried to
turn my head in sec what it was, and I tumbled down and sat up in time to
see a radiant creature staring at me. The deer looked at me and I told him I
would not harm him. And the deer talked to me. Don Juan stopped and looked
at me. I smiled involuntarily. The idea of a talking deer was quite
incredible, to put it mildly. "He talked to me, " don Juan said with a grin.
"The deer talked?"
"He did."
Don Juan stood and picked up his bundle of hunting paraphernalia.
"Did it really talk?" I asked in a tone of perplexity.
Don Juan roared with laughter.
"What did it say?" I asked half in jest.
I thought he was pulling my leg. Don Juan was quiet for a moment, as if
he were trying to remember, then his eyes brightened as he told me what the
deer had said.
"The magical deer said, 'Hello friend.', don Juan went on.
"And I answered, 'Hello.' Then he asked me, 'Why are you crying?' and I
said, 'Because I'm sad.' Then the magical creature came to my ear and said
as clearly as I am speaking now, 'Don't be sad.'"
Don Juan stared into my eyes. He had a glint of sheer mischievous ness.
He began to laugh uproariously. I said that his dialogue with the deer had
been sort of dumb. "What did you expect?" he asked, still laughing. "I'm an
Indian."
His sense of humor was so outlandish that all I could do was laugh with
him.
"You don't believe that a magical deer talks, do you?"
"I'm sorry but I just can't believe things like that can happen, " I
said.
"I don't blame you, " he said reassuringly. "It's one of the darndest
things."
THE LAST BATTLE ON EARTH
Monday, July 24, 1961
Around mid-afternoon, after we had roamed for hours in the desert, don
Juan chose a place to rest in a shaded area. As soon as we sat down he began
talking. He said that I had learned a great deal about hunting, but I had
not changed as much as he had wished.
"It's not enough to know how to make and set up traps, " he said. "A
hunter must live as a hunter in order to draw the most out of his life.
Unfortunately, changes are difficult and happen very slowly; sometimes it
takes years for a man to become convinced of the need to change. It took me
years, but maybe I didn't have a knack for hunting. I think for me the most
difficult thing was to really want to change."
I assured him that I understood his point. In fact, since he had begun
to teach me how to hunt I also had begun to reassess my actions. Perhaps the
most dramatic discovery for me was that I liked don Juan's ways. I liked don
Juan as a person.
There was something solid about his behavior; the way he conducted
himself left no doubts about his mastery, and yet He had never exercised his
advantage to demand anything from me. His interest in changing my way of
life, I felt, was akin to an impersonal suggestion, or perhaps it was akin
to an authoritative commentary on my failures. He had made me very aware of
my failings, yet I could not see how his ways would remedy anything in me. I
sincerely believed that, in light of what I wanted to do in my life, his
ways would have only brought me misery and hardship, hence the impasse.
However, I had learned to respect his mastery, which had always been
expressed in terms of beauty and precision.
"I have decided to shift my tactics, " he said.
I asked him to explain; his statement was vague and I was not sure
whether or not he was referring to me. "A good hunter changes his ways as
often as he needs, " he replied. "You know that yourself."
"What do you have in mind, don Juan?"
"A hunter must not only know about the habits of his prey, he also must
know that there are powers on this earth that guide men and animals and
everything that is living."
He stopped talking. I waited but he seemed to have come to the end of
what he wanted to say.
"What kind of powers are you talking about?" I asked after a long
pause.
"Powers that guide our lives and our deaths."
Don Juan stopped talking and seemed to be having tremendous difficulty
in deciding what to say. He rubbed his hands and shook his head, puffing out
his jaws. Twice he signaled me to be quiet as I started to ask him to
explain his cryptic statements.
"You won't be able to stop yourself easily, " he finally said.
"I know that you're stubborn, but that doesn't matter. The more
stubborn you are the better it'll be when you finally succeed in changing
yourself."
"I am trying my best, " I said.
"No. I disagree. You're not trying your best. You just said that
because it sounds good to you; in fact, you've been saying the same thing
about everything you do. You've been trying your best for years to no avail.
Something must be done to remedy that."
I felt compelled, as usual, to defend myself. Don Juan seemed to aim,
as a rule, at my very weakest points. I remembered then that every time I
had attempted to defend myself against his criticisms I had ended up feeling
like a fool, and I stopped myself in the midst of a long explanatory speech.
Don Juan examined me with curiosity and laughed. He said in a very kind
tone that he had already told me that all of us were fools. I was not an
exception.
"You always feel compelled to explain your acts, as if you were the
only man on earth who's wrong, " he said. "It's your old feeling of
importance. You have too much of it; you also have too much personal
history. On the other hand, you don't assume responsibility for your acts;
you're not using your death as an adviser, and above all, you are too
accessible. In other words, your life is as messy as it was before I met
you."
Again I had a genuine surge of pride and wanted to argue that he was
wrong. He gestured me to be quiet.
"One must assume responsibility for being in a weird world, " he said.
"We are in a weird world, you know."
I nodded my head affirmatively. "We're not talking about the same
thing, " he said. "For you the world is weird because if you're not bored
with it you're at odds with it. For me the world is weird because it is
stupendous, awesome, mysterious, unfathomable; my interest has been to
convince you that you must assume responsibility for being here, in this
marvelous world, in this marvelous desert, in this marvelous time. I wanted
to convince you that you must learn to make every act count, since you are
going to be here for only a short while, in fact, too short for witnessing
all the marvels of it."
I insisted that to be bored with the world or to be at odds with it was
the human condition. "So, change it, " he replied dryly. "If you do not
respond to that challenge you are as good as dead."
He dared me to name an issue, an item in my life that had engaged all
my thoughts. I said art. I had always wanted to be an artist and for years I
had tried my hand at that. I still had the painful memory of my failure.
"You have never taken the responsibility for being in this unfathomable
world, " he said in an indicting tone. "Therefore, you were never an artist,
and perhaps you'll never be a hunter."
"This is my best, don Juan."
"No. You don't know what your best is."
"I am doing all I can."
"You're wrong again. You can do better. There is one simple thing wrong
with you-you think you have plenty of time." He paused and looked at me as
if waiting for my reaction.
"You think you have plenty of time," he repeated.
"Plenty of time for what, don Juan?"
"You think your life is going to last forever."
"No. I don't."
"Then, if you don't think your life is going to last forever, what are
you waiting for? Why the hesitation to change?"
"Has it ever occurred to you, don Juan, that I may not want to change?"
"Yes, it has occurred to me. I did not want to change either, just like
you. However, I didn't like my life; I was tired of it, just like you. Now I
don't have enough of it."
I vehemently asserted that his insistence about changing my way of life
was frightening and arbitrary. I said that I really agreed with him, at a
certain level, but the mere fact that he was always the master that called
the shots made the situation untenable for me.
"You don't have time for this display, you fool, " he said in a severe
tone. "This, whatever you're doing now, may be your last act on earth. It
may very well be your last battle.
There is no power which could guarantee that you are going to live one
more minute."
"I know that, " I said with contained anger.
"No. You don't. If you knew that you would be a hunter." I contended
that I was aware of my impending death but it was useless to talk or think
about it, since I could not do anything to avoid it. Don Juan laughed and
said I was like a comedian going mechanically through a routine.
"If this were your last battle on earth, I would say that you are an
idiot, " he said calmly. "You are wasting your last act on earth in some
stupid mood."
We were quiet for a moment. My thoughts ran rampant. He was right, of
course. "You have no time, my friend, no time. None of us have time, " he
said. "I agree, don Juan, but-"
"Don't just agree with me, " he snapped. "You must, instead of agreeing
so easily, act upon it. Take the challenge. Change."
"Just like that?"
"That's right. The change I'm talking about never takes place by
degrees; it happens suddenly. And you are not preparing yourself for that
sudden act that will bring a total change."
I believed he was expressing a contradiction. I explained to him that
if I were preparing myself to change I was certainly changing by degrees.
"You haven't changed at all, " he said. "That is why you believe you're
changing little by little. Yet, perhaps you will surprise yourself someday
by changing suddenly and without a single warning. I know this is so, and
thus I don't lose sight of my interest in convincing you." I could not
persist in my arguing. I was not sure of what I really wanted to say. After
a moment's pause don Juan went on explaining his point.
"Perhaps I should put it in a different way, " he said. "What I
recommend you to do is to notice that we do not have any assurance that our
lives will go on indefinitely. I have just said that change comes suddenly
and unexpectedly, and so does death. What do you think we can do about it?"
I thought he was asking a rhetorical question, but he made a gesture
with his eyebrows urging me to answer.
"To live as happily as possible, " I said.
"Right! But do you know anyone who lives happily?"
My first impulse was to say yes; I thought I could use a number of
people I knew as examples. On second thought, however, I knew my effort
would only be an empty attempt at exonerating myself.
"No, " I said. "I really don't."
"I do, " don Juan said. "There are some people who are very careful
about the nature of their acts. Their happiness is to act with the full
knowledge that they don't have time; therefore, their acts have a peculiar
power; their acts have a sense of . . ."
Don Juan seemed to be at a loss for words. He scratched his temples and
smiled. Then suddenly he stood up as if he were through with our
conversation. I beseeched him to finish what he was telling me. He sat down
and puckered up his lips.
"Acts have power, " he said. "Especially when the person acting knows
that those acts are his last battle. There is a strange consuming happiness
in acting with the full knowledge that whatever one is doing may very well
be one's last act on earth. I recommend that you reconsider your life and
bring your acts into that light."
I disagreed with him. Happiness for me was to assume that there was an
inherent continuity to my acts and that I would be able to continue doing,
at will, whatever I was doing at the moment, especially if I was enjoying
it. I told him that my disagreement was not a banal one but stemmed from the
conviction that the world and myself had a determinable continuity. Don Juan
seemed to be amused by my efforts to make sense. He laughed, shook his head,
scratched his hair, and finally when I talked about a "determinable
continuity" threw his hat to the ground and stomped on it.
I ended up laughing at his clowning. "You don't have time, my friend, "
he said. "That is the misfortune of human beings. None of us have sufficient
time, and your continuity has no meaning in this awesome, mysterious world.
"Your continuity only makes you timid, " he said. "Your acts cannot possibly
have the flair, the power, the compelling force of the acts performed by a
man who knows that he is fighting his last battle on earth. In other words,
your continuity does not make you happy or powerful." I admitted that I was
afraid of thinking I was going to die and I accused him of causing great
apprehension in me with his constant talk and concern about death.
"But we are all going to die, " he said.
He pointed towards some hills in the distance.
"There is something out there waiting for me, for sure; and I will join
it, also for sure. But perhaps you're different and death is not waiting for
you at all."
He laughed at my gesture of despair.
"I don't want to think about it, don Juan."
"Why not?"
"It is meaningless. If it is out there waiting for me why should I
worry about it?"
"I didn't say that you have to worry about it."
"What am I supposed to do then?"
"Use it. Focus your attention on the link between you and your death,
without remorse or sadness or worrying. Focus your attention on the fact you
don't have time and let your acts flow accordingly. Let each of your acts be
your last battle on earth. Only under those conditions will your acts have
their rightful power. Otherwise they will be, for as long as you live, the
acts of a timid man."
"Is it so terrible to be a timid man?"
"No. It isn't if you are going to be immortal, but if you are going to
die there is no time for timidity, simply because timidity makes you cling
to something that exists only in your thoughts. It soothes you while
everything is at a lull, but then the awesome, mysterious world will open
its mouth for you, as it will open for every one of us, and then you will
realize that your sure ways were not sure at all. Being timid prevents us
from examining and exploiting our lot as men."
"It is not natural to live with the constant idea of our death, don
Juan."
"Our death is waiting and this very act we're performing now may well
be our last battle on earth, " he replied in a solemn voice. "I call it a
battle because it is a struggle. Most people move from act to act without
any struggle or thought. A hunter, on the contrary, assesses every act; and
since he has an intimate knowledge of his death, he proceeds judiciously, as
if every act were his last battle. Only a fool would fail to notice the
advantage a hunter has over his fellow men. A hunter gives his last battle
its due respect. It's only natural that his last act on earth should be the
best of himself. It's pleasurable that way. It dulls the edge of his
fright."
"You are right, " I conceded. "It's just hard to accept."
"It'll take years for you to convince yourself and then it'll take
years for you to act accordingly. I only hope you have time left."
"I get scared when you say that, " I said.
Don Juan examined me with a serious expression on his face.
"I've told you, this is a weird world, " he said. "The forces that
guide men are unpredictable, awesome, yet their splendor is something to
witness."
He stopped talking and looked at me again. He seemed to be on the verge
of revealing something to me, but he checked himself and smiled.
"Is there something that guides us?" I asked.
"Certainly. There are powers that guide us."
"Can you describe them?"
"Not really, except to call them forces, spirits, airs, winds, or
anything like that."
I wanted to probe him further, but before I could ask anything else he
stood up. I stared at him, flabbergasted. He had stood up in one single
movement; his body simply jerked up and he was on his feet.
I was still pondering upon the unusual skill that would be needed in
order to move with such speed when he told me in a dry tone of command to
stalk a rabbit, catch it, kill it, skin it, and roast the meat before the
twilight.
He looked up at the sky and said that I might have enough time.
I automatically started off, proceeding the way I had done scores of
times. Don Juan walked beside me and followed my movements with a
scrutinizing look. I was very calm and moved carefully and I had no trouble
at all in catching a male rabbit.
"Now kill it, " don Juan said dryly.
I reached into the trap to grab hold of the rabbit. I had it by the
ears and was pulling it out when a sudden sensation of terror invaded me.
For the first time since don Juan had begun to teach me to hunt it occurred
to me that he had never taught me how to kill game. In the scores of times
we had roamed in the desert he himself had only killed one rabbit, two quail
and one rattlesnake.
I dropped the rabbit and looked at don Juan.
"I can't kill it, " I said.
"Why not?"
"I've never done that."
"But you've killed hundreds of birds and other animals."
"With a gun, not with my bare hands."
"What difference does it make? This rabbit's time is up."
Don Juan's tone shocked me; it was so authoritative, so knowledgeable,
it left no doubts in my mind that he knew that the rabbit's time was up.
"Kill it!" he commanded with a ferocious look in his eyes.
"I can't."
He yelled at me that the rabbit had to die. He said that its roaming in
that beautiful desert had come to an end. I had no business stalling,
because the power or the spirit that guides rabbits had led that particular
one into my trap, right at the edge of the twilight.
A series of confusing thoughts and feelings overtook me, as if the
feelings had been out there waiting for me. I felt with agonizing clarity
the rabbit's tragedy, to have fallen into my trap. In a matter of seconds my
mind swept across the most crucial moments of my own life, the many times I
had been the rabbit myself.
I looked at it, and it looked at me. The rabbit had backed up against
the side of the cage; it was almost curled up, very quiet and motionless. We
exchanged a somber glance, and that glance, which I fancied to be of silent
despair, cemented a complete identification on my part. "The hell with it, "
I said loudly. "I won't kill anything. That rabbit goes free."
A profound emotion made me shiver. My arms trembled as I tried to grab
the rabbit by the ears; it moved fast and I missed. I again tried and
fumbled once more. I became desperate. I had the sensation of nausea and
quickly kicked the trap in order to smash it and let the rabbit go free. The
cage was unsuspectedly strong and did not break as I thought it would. My
despair mounted to an unbearable feeling of anguish. Using all my strength,
I stomped on the edge of the cage with my right foot. The sticks cracked
loudly. I pulled the rabbit out. I had a moment of relief, which was
shattered to bits in the next instant. The rabbit hung limp in my hand. It
was dead. I did not know what to do. I became preoccupied with finding out
how it had died. I turned to don Juan. He was
staring at me. A feeling of terror sent a chill through my body.
I sat down by some rocks. I had a terrible headache. Don Juan put his
hand on my head and whispered in my ear that I had to skin the rabbit and
roast it before the twilight was over.
I felt nauseated. He very patiently talked to me as if he were talking
to a child. He said that the powers that guided men or animals had led that
particular rabbit to me, in the same way they will lead me to my own death.
He said the rabbit's death had been a gift for me in exactly the same way my
own death will be a gift for something or someone else.
I was dizzy. The simple events of that day had crushed me. I tried to
think that it was only a rabbit; I could not, however, shake off the uncanny
identification I had had with it.
Don Juan said that I needed to eat some of its meat, if only morsel, in
order to validate my finding.
"I can't do that, " I protested meekly.
"We are dregs in the hands of those forces, " he snapped at me. "So
stop your self-importance and use this gift properly." I picked up the
rabbit; it was warm.
Don Juan leaned over and whispered in my ear, "Your trap was his last
battle on earth. I told you, he had no more time to roam in this marvelous
desert."
BECOMING ACCESSIBLE TO POWER
Thursday, August 11, 1961
As soon as I got out of my car I complained to don Juan that I was not
feeling well.
"Sit down, sit down, " he said softly and almost led me by the hand to
his porch. He smiled and patted me on the back.
Two weeks before, on August 4th, don Juan, as he had said, changed his
tactics with me and allowed me to ingest some peyote buttons. During the
height of my hallucinatory experience I played with a dog that lived in the
house where the peyote session took place. Don Juan interpreted my
interaction with the dog as a very special event. He contended that at
moments of power, such as the one I had been living then, the world of
ordinary affairs did not exist and nothing could be taken for granted, that
the dog was not really a dog but the incarnation of Mescalito, the power or
deity contained in peyote.
The post-effects of that experience were a general sense of fatigue and
melancholy, plus the incidence of exceptionally vivid dreams and nightmares.
"Where's your writing gear?" don Juan asked as I sat down on the porch.
I had left my notebooks in my car. Don Juan walked back to the car and
carefully pulled out my briefcase and brought it to my side.
He asked if I usually carried my briefcase when I walked. I said I did.
"That's madness, " he said. "I've told you never to carry anything in
your hands when you walk. Get a knapsack."
I laughed. The idea of carrying my notes in a knapsack was ludicrous. I
told him that ordinarily I wore a suit and a knapsack over a three-piece