to fight not to laugh at the comical sight of the frail old man trying his
best to bend his knees. Don Juan said that while the old man washed his
wound, he would mumble incessantly; he had a vacant look in his eyes; his
hands shook, and his body trembled from head to toe.
When he was down on his knees, he could never get up by himself. He
would call his wife, yelling in a raspy voice, filled with contained anger.
The wife would come into the room and both of them would get into a horrible
argument. Often she would walk out, leaving the old man to get up by
himself.
Don Juan assured me that he had never felt so sorry for anyone as he
felt for that poor, kind old man. Many times he wanted to rise and help him
up, but he could hardly move himself. Once the old man spent half an hour
cursing and yelling, as he puffed and crawled like a slug, before he dragged
himself to the door and painfully lifted himself up to a standing position.
He explained to don Juan that his poor health was due to advanced age,
broken bones that had not mended properly, and rheumatism. Don Juan said
that the old man raised his eyes toward heaven and confessed to don Juan
that he was the most wretched man on earth; he had come to the curer for
help and had ended up marrying her and becoming a slave.
"I asked the old man why he didn't leave," don Juan continued. "The old
man's eyes widened with fear. He choked on his own saliva trying to hush me
and then he went rigid and fell down like a log on the floor, next to my
bed, trying to make me stop talking. 'You don't know what you're saying; you
don't know what you're saying. Nobody can run away from this place, ' the
old man kept on repeating with a wild expression in his eyes.
"And I believed him. I was convinced that he was more miserable, more
wretched than I had ever been myself. And with every day that passed I
became more and more uncomfortable in that house. The food was great and the
woman was always out curing people, so I was left with the old man. We
talked a lot about my life. I liked to talk to him. I told him that I had no
money to pay him for his kindness, but that I would do anything to help him.
He told me that he was beyond help, that he was ready to die, but that if I
really meant what I said, he would appreciate it if I would marry his wife
after he died.
"Right then I knew the old man was nuts. And right then I also knew
that I had to run away as soon as possible."
Don Juan said that when he was well enough to walk around unaided, his
benefactor gave him a chilling demonstration of his ability as a stalker.
Without any warning or preamble he put don Juan face to face with an
inorganic living being. Sensing that don Juan was planning to run away, he
seized the opportunity to scare him with an ally that was somehow able to
look like a monstrous man.
"The sight of that ally nearly drove me insane," don Juan continued. "I
couldn't believe my eyes, and yet the monster was right in front of me. And
the frail old man was next to me whimpering and begging the monster to spare
his life. You see, my benefactor was like the old seers; he could dole out
his fear, a piece at a time, and the ally was reacting to it. I didn't know
that. All I could see with my very own eyes was a horrendous creature
advancing on us, ready to tear us apart, limb from limb.
"The moment the ally lurched onto us, hissing like a serpent, I passed
out cold. When I came to my senses again, the old man told me that he had
made a deal with the creature."
He explained to don Juan that the man had agreed to let both of them
live, provided don Juan enter the man's service. Don Juan apprehensively
asked what was involved in the service. The old man replied that it would be
slavery, but pointed out that don Juan's life had nearly ended a few days
back when he had been shot. Had not he and his wife come along to stop the
bleeding, don Juan would surely have died, so there was really very little
to bargain with, or to bargain for. The monstrous man knew that and had him
over a barrel. The old man told don Juan to stop vacillating and accept the
deal, because if he refused, the monstrous man, who was listening behind the
door, would burst in and kill them both on the spot and be done with it.
"I had enough nerve to ask the frail old man, who was shaking like a
leaf, how the man would kill us," don Juan went on. "He said that the
monster planned to break all the bones in our bodies, starting with our
feet, as we screamed in unspeakable agony, and that it would take at least
five days for us to die.
"I accepted that man's conditions instantly. The old man, with tears in
his eyes, congratulated me and said that the deal wasn't really that bad. We
were going to be more prisoners than slaves of the monstrous man, but we
would eat at least twice a day; and since we had life, we could work for our
freedom; we could plot, connive, and fight our way out of that hell."
Don Juan smiled and then broke into laughter. He had known beforehand
how I would feel about the nagual Julian.
"I told you you'd be upset," he said.
"I really don't understand, don Juan," I said. "What was the point of
putting on such an elaborate masquerade?"
"The point is very simple," he said, still smiling. "This is another
method of teaching, a very good one. it requires tremendous imagination and
tremendous control on the part of the teacher. My method of teaching is
closer to what you consider teaching. It requires a tremendous amount of
words. I go to the extremes of talking. The nagual Julian went to the
extremes of stalking."
Don Juan said that there were two methods of teaching among the seers.
He was familiar with both of them. He preferred the one that called for
explaining everything and letting the other person know the course of action
beforehand. It was a system that fostered freedom, choice, and
understanding. His benefactor's method, on the other hand, was more coercive
and did not allow for choice or understanding. Its great advantage was that
it forced warriors to live the seers' concepts directly with no intermediary
elucidation.
Don Juan explained that everything his benefactor did to him was a
masterpiece of strategy. Every one of the nagual Julian's words and actions
was deliberately selected to cause a particular effect. His art was to
provide his words and actions with the most suitable context, so that they
would have the necessary impact.
"That's the stalkers' method," don Juan went on. "It fosters not
understanding but total realization. For instance, it took me a lifetime to
understand what he had done to me by making me face the ally, although I
realized all that without any explanation as I lived that experience.
"I've told you that Genaro, for example, doesn't understand what he
does, but his realization of what he is doing is as keen as it can be.
That's because his assemblage point was moved by the stalkers' method."
He said that if the assemblage point is forced out of its customary
setting by the method of explaining everything, as in my case, there is
always the need for someone else not only to help in the actual dislodging
of the assemblage point, but in dispensing the explanations of what is going
on. But if the assemblage point is moved by the stalkers' method, as in his
own case, or Genaro's, there is only a need for the initial catalytic act
that yanks the point from its location.
Don Juan said that when the nagual Julian made him face the
monstrous-looking ally his assemblage point moved under the impact of fear.
So intense a fright as that caused by the confrontation, coupled with his
weak physical condition, was ideal for dislodging his assemblage point.
In order to offset the injurious effects of fright, its impact had to
be cushioned, but not minimized. Explaining what was happening would have
minimized fear. What the nagual Julian wanted was to make sure that he could
use that initial catalytic fright as many times as he needed it, but he also
wanted to make sure that he could cushion its devastating impact; that was
the reason for his masquerade. The more elaborate and dramatic his stories
were, the greater their cushioning effect. If he, himself, seemed to be in
the same boat with don Juan, the fright would not be as intense as if don
Juan were alone.
"With his penchant for drama," don Juan went on, "my benefactor was
able to move my assemblage point enough to imbue me right away with an
overpowering feeling for the two basic qualities of warriors: sustained
effort and unbending intent. I knew that in order to be free again someday,
I would have to work in an orderly and steady fashion and in cooperation
with the frail old man, who in my opinion needed my help as much as I needed
his. I knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that that was what I wanted to do
more than anything else in life."
I did not get to talk to don Juan again until two days later. We were
in Oaxaca, strolling in the main square, in the early morning. There were
children walking to school, people going to church, a few men sitting on the
benches, and taxi drivers waiting for tourists from the main hotel.
"It goes without saying that the most difficult thing in the warriors'
path is to make the assemblage point move," don Juan said. "That movement is
the completion of the warriors' quest. To go on from there is another quest;
it is the seers' quest proper."
He repeated that in the warriors' way, the shift of the assemblage
point is everything. The old seers absolutely failed to realize this truth.
They thought the movement of the point was like a marker that determined
their positions on a scale of worth. They never conceived that it was that
very position which determined what they perceived.
"The stalkers' method," don Juan went on, "in the hands of a master
stalker like the nagual Julian, accounts for stupendous shifts of the
assemblage point. These are very solid changes; you see, by buttressing the
apprentice, the stalker-teacher gets the apprentice's full cooperation and
full participation. To get anybody's full cooperation and full participation
is about the most important outcome of the stalkers' method; and the nagual
Julian was the best at getting both of them."
Don Juan said that there was no way for him to describe the turmoil
that he went through as he found out, little by little, about the richness
and the complexity of the nagual Julian's personality and life. As long as
don Juan faced a scared, frail old man who seemed helpless, he was fairly at
ease, comfortable. But one day, soon after they had made the deal with what
don Juan thought of as a monstrous-looking man, his comfort was shot to
pieces when the nagual Julian gave don Juan another unnerving demonstration
of his stalking skills.
Although don Juan was quite well by then, the nagual Julian still slept
in the same room with him in order to nurse him. When he woke up that day,
he announced to don Juan that their captor was gone for a couple of days,
which meant that he did not have to act like an old man. He confided to don
Juan that he only pretended to be old in order to fool the monstrous-looking
man.
Without giving don Juan time to think, he jumped up from his mat with
incredible agility; he bent over and dunked his head in a pot of water and
kept it there for a while. When he straightened up, his hair was jet black,
the gray hair had washed away, and don Juan was looking at a man he had
never seen before, a man perhaps in his late thirties. He flexed his
muscles, breathed deeply, and stretched every part of his body as if he had
been too long inside a constricting cage.
"When I saw the nagual Julian as a young man, I thought that he was
indeed the devil," don Juan went on. "I closed my eyes and knew that my end
was near. The nagual Julian laughed until he was crying."
Don Juan said that the nagual Julian then put him at ease by making him
shift back and forth between the right side and the left side awareness.
"For two days the young man pranced around the house," don Juan
continued. "He told me stories about his life and jokes that sent me reeling
around the room with laughter. But what was even more astounding was the way
his wife had changed. She was actually thin and beautiful. I thought she was
a completely different woman. I raved about how complete her change was and
how beautiful she looked. The young man said that when their captor was away
she was actually another woman."
Don Juan laughed and said that his devilish benefactor was telling the
truth. The woman was really another seer of the nagual's party.
Don Juan asked the young man why they pretended to be what they were
not. The young man looked at don Juan, his eyes filled with tears, and said
that the mysteries of the world are indeed unfathomable. He and his young
wife had been caught by inexplicable forces and had to protect themselves
with that pretense. The reason why he carried on the way he did, as a feeble
old man, was that their captor was always peeking in through cracks in the
doors. He begged don Juan to forgive him for having fooled him.
Don Juan asked who that monstrous-looking man was. With a deep sigh,
the young man confessed that he could not even guess. He told don Juan that
although he himself was an educated man, a famous actor from the theater in
Mexico City, he was at a loss for explanations. All he knew was that he had
come to be treated for the consumption that he had suffered from for many
years. He was near death when his relatives brought him to meet the curer.
She helped him to get well, and he fell madly in love with the beautiful
young Indian and married her. His plans were to take her to the capital so
they could get rich with her curing ability.
Before they started on the trip to Mexico City, she warned him that
they had to disguise themselves in order to escape a sorcerer. She explained
to him that her mother had also been a curer, and had been taught curing by
that master sorcerer, who had demanded that she, the daughter, stay with him
for life. The young man said that he had refused to ask his wife about that
relationship. He only wanted to free her, so he disguised himself as an old
man and disguised her as a fat woman.
Their story did not end happily. The horrible man caught them and kept
them as prisoners. They did not dare to take off their disguise in front of
that nightmarish man, and in his presence they carried on as if they hated
each other; but in reality, they pined for each other and lived only for the
short times when that man was away.
Don Juan said that the young man embraced him and told him that the
room where don Juan was sleeping was the only safe place in the house. Would
he please go out and be on the lockout while he made love to his wife?
"The house shook with their passion," don Juan went on, "while I sat by
the door feeling guilty for listening and scared to death that the man would
come back any minute. And sure enough, I heard him coming into the house. I
banged on the door, and when they didn't answer, I walked in. The young
woman was asleep naked and the young man was nowhere in sight. I had never
seen a beautiful naked woman in my life. I was still very weak. I heard the
monstrous man rattling outside. My embarrassment and my fear were so great
that I passed out."
The story about the nagual Julian's doings annoyed me no end. I told
don Juan that I had failed to understand the value of the nagual Julian's
stalking skills. Don Juan listened to me without making a single comment and
let me ramble on and on.
When we finally sat down on a bench, I was very tired. I did not know
what to say when he asked me why his account of the nagual Julian's method
of teaching had upset me so much.
"I can't shake off the feeling that he was a prankster," I finally
said.
"Pranksters don't teach anything deliberately with their pranks," don
Juan retorted. "The nagual Julian played dramas, magical dramas that
required a movement of the assemblage point."
"He seems like a very selfish person to me," I insisted.
"He seems like that to you because you are judging," he replied. "You
are being a moralist. I went through all that myself. If you feel the way
you do on hearing about the nagual Julian, think of the way I must have felt
myself living in his house for years. I judged him, I feared him, and I
envied him, in that order.
"I also loved him, but my envy was greater than my love. I envied his
ease, his mysterious capacity to be young or old at will; I envied his flair
and above all his influence on whoever happened to be around. It would drive
me up the walls to hear him engage people in the most interesting
conversation. He always had something to say; I never did, and I always felt
incompetent, left out."
Don Juan's revelations made me feel ill at ease. I wished that he would
change the subject, for I did not want to hear that he was like me. In my
opinion, he was indeed unequaled. He obviously knew how I felt. He laughed
and patted my back.
"What I am trying to do with the story of my envy," he went on, "is to
point out to you something of great importance, that the position of the
assemblage point dictates how we behave and how we feel.
"My great flaw at that time was that I could not understand this
principle. I was raw. I lived through self-importance, just as you do,
because that was where my assemblage point was lodged. You see, I hadn't
learned yet that the way to move that point is to establish new habits, to
will it to move. When it did move, it was as if I had just discovered that
the only way to deal with peerless warriors like my benefactor is not to
have self-importance, so that one can celebrate them unbiasedly."
He said that realizations are of two kinds. One is just pep talk, great
outbursts of emotion and nothing more. The other is the product of a shift
of the assemblage point; it is not coupled with an emotional outburst but
with action. The emotional realizations come years later after warriors have
solidified, by usage, the new position of their assemblage points.
"The nagual Julian tirelessly guided all of us to that kind of shift,"
don Juan went on. "He got from all of us total cooperation and total
participation in his bigger-than-life dramas. For instance, with his drama
of the young man and his wife and their captor he had my undivided attention
and concern. To me the story of the old man who was young was very
consistent. I had seen the monstrous-looking man with my very own eyes,
which meant that the young man got my undying affiliation."
Don Juan said that the nagual Julian was a magician, a conjurer who
could handle the force of will to a degree that would be incomprehensible to
the average man. His dramas included magical characters summoned by the
force of intent, like the inorganic being that could adopt a grotesque human
form.
"The nagual Julian's power was so impeccable," don Juan went on, "that
he could force anyone's assemblage point to shift and align emanations that
would make him perceive whatever the nagual Julian wanted. For example, he
could look very old or very young for his age, depending on what he wanted
to accomplish. And all anyone who knew the nagual could say about his age
was that it fluctuated. During the thirty-two years that I knew him he was
at times not much older than you are now, and at other times he was so
wretchedly old that he could not even walk."
Don Juan said that under his benefactor's guidance his assemblage point
moved unnoticeably and yet profoundly. For instance, out of nowhere one day
he realized that he had a fear that on the one hand made no sense to him at
all, and on the other made all the sense in the world.
"My fear was that through stupidity I would lose my chance to be free
and I would repeat my father's life.
"There was nothing wrong with my father's life, mind you. He lived and
died no better and no worse than most men; the important point is that my
assemblage point had moved and I realized one day that my father's life and
death hadn't amounted to a hill of beans, either to others or to himself.
"My benefactor told me that my father and mother had lived and died
just to have me, and that their own parents had done the same for them. He
said that warriors were different in that they shift their assemblage points
enough to realize the tremendous price that has been paid for their lives.
This shift gives them the respect and awe that their parents never felt for
life in general, or for being alive in particular."
Don Juan said that not only was the nagual Julian successful in guiding
his apprentices to move their assemblage points, but that he enjoyed himself
tremendously while doing it.
"He certainly entertained himself immensely with me," don Juan went on.
"When the other seers of my party began to come, years later, even I looked
forward to the preposterous situations that he created and developed with
each one of them.
"When the nagual Julian left the world, delight went away with him and
never came back. Genaro delights us sometimes, but no one can take the
nagual Julian's place. His dramas were always bigger than life. I assure you
we didn't know what enjoyment was until we saw what he did when some of
those dramas backfired on him."
Don Juan rose from his favorite bench. He turned to me. His eyes were
brilliant and peaceful.
"If you are ever so dumb as to fail in your task," he said, "you must
have at least enough energy to move your assemblage point in order to come
to this bench. Sit down here for an instant, free of thoughts and desires; I
will try to come here from wherever I am and collect you. I promise you that
I will try."
He then broke into a great laugh, as if the scope of his promise was
too ludicrous to be believed.
"These words should be said in the late afternoon," he said, still
laughing. "Never in the morning. The morning makes one feel optimistic and
such words lose their meaning."
13 The Earth's Boost
"Let's walk on the road to Oaxaca," don Juan said to me. "Genaro is
waiting for us somewhere along the way."
His request took me by surprise. I had been waiting all day for him to
continue his explanation. We left his house and walked in silence through
the town to the unpaved highway. We walked leisurely for a long time.
Suddenly don Juan began to talk.
"I've been telling you all along about the great findings that the old
seers made," he said. "Just as they found out that organic life is not the
only life present on earth, they also discovered that the earth itself is a
living being."
He waited a moment before continuing. He smiled at me as if inviting me
to make a comment. I could not think of anything to say.
"The old seers saw that the earth has a cocoon," he went on. "They saw
that there is a ball encasing the earth, a luminous cocoon that entraps the
Eagle's emanations. The earth is a gigantic sentient being subjected to the
same forces we are."
He explained that the old seers, on discovering this, became
immediately interested in the practical uses of that knowledge. The result
of their interest was that the most elaborate categories of their sorcery
had to do with the earth. They considered the earth to be the ultimate
source of everything we are.
Don Juan reaffirmed that the old seers were not mistaken in this
respect, because the earth is indeed our ultimate source.
He didn't say anything else until we met Genaro about a mile up the
road. He was waiting for us, sitting on a rock by the side of the road.
He greeted me with great warmth. He said to me that we should climb up
to the top of some small rugged mountains covered with hardy vegetation.
"The three of us are going to sit against a rock," don Juan said to me,
"and look at the sunlight as it is reflected on the eastern mountains. When
the sun goes down behind the western peaks, the earth may let you see
alignment."
When we reached the top of a mountain, we sat down, as don Juan had
said, with our backs against a rock. Don Juan made me sit in between the two
of them.
I asked him what he was planning to do. His cryptic statements and his
long silences were ominous. I felt terribly apprehensive.
He didn't answer me. He kept on talking as if I had not spoken at all.
"it was the old seers who, on discovering that perception is
alignment," he said, "stumbled onto something monumental. The sad part is
that their aberrations again kept them from knowing what they had
accomplished."
He pointed at the mountain range east of the small valley where the
town is located.
"There is enough glitter in those mountains to jolt your assemblage
point," he said to me. "Just before the sun goes down behind the western
peaks, you will have a few moments to catch all the glitter you need. The
magic key that opens the earth's doors is made of internal silence plus
anything that shines."
"What exactly should I do, don Juan?" I asked.
Both of them examined me. I thought I saw in their eyes a mixture of
curiosity and revulsion.
"Just cut off the internal dialogue," don Juan said to me.
I had an intense pang of anxiety and doubt; I had no confidence that I
could do it at will. After an initial moment of nagging frustration, I
resigned my self just to relax.
I looked around. I noticed that we were high enough to look down into
the long, narrow valley. More than half of it was in the late-afternoon
shadows. The sun was still shining on the foothills of the eastern range of
mountains, on the other side of the valley; the sunlight made the eroded
mountains look ocher, while the more distant bluish peaks had acquired a
purple tone.
"You do realize that you've done this before, don't you?" don Juan said
to me in a whisper.
I told him that I had not realized anything.
"We've sat here before on other occasions," he insisted, "but that
doesn't matter, because this occasion is the one that will count.
"Today, with the help of Genaro, you are going to find the key that
unlocks everything. You won't be able to use it as yet, but you'll know what
it is and where it is. Seers pay the heaviest prices to know that. You,
yourself, have been paying your dues all these years."
He explained that what he called the key to everything was the
firsthand knowledge that the earth is a sentient being and as such can give
warriors a tremendous boost; it is an impulse that comes from the awareness
of the earth itself at the instant in which the emanations inside warriors'
cocoons are aligned with the appropriate emanations inside the earth's
cocoon. Since both the earth and man are sentient beings, their emanations
coincide, or rather, the earth has all the emanations present in man and all
the emanations that are present in all sentient beings, organic and
inorganic for that matter. When a moment of alignment takes place, sentient
beings use that alignment in a limited way and perceive their world.
Warriors can use that alignment either to perceive, like everyone else, or
as a boost that allows them to enter unimaginable worlds.
"I've been waiting for you to ask me the only meaningful question you
can ask, but you never ask it," he continued. "You are hooked on asking
about whether the mystery of it all is inside us. You came close enough,
though.
"The unknown is not really inside the cocoon of man in the emanations
untouched by awareness, and yet it is there, in a manner of speaking. This
is the point you haven't understood. When I told you that we can assemble
seven worlds besides the one we know, you took it as being an internal
affair, because your total bias is to believe that you are only imagining
everything you do with us. Therefore, you have never asked me where the
unknown really is. For years I have circled with my hand to point to
everything around us and I have told you that the unknown is there. You
never made the connection."
Genaro began to laugh, then coughed and stood up. "He still hasn't made
the connection," he said to don Juan.
I admitted to them that if there was a connection to be made, I had
failed to make it.
Don Juan restated over and over that the portion of emanations inside
man's cocoon is in there only for awareness, and that awareness is matching
that portion of emanations with the same portion of emanations at large.
They are called emanations at large because they are immense; and to say
that outside man's cocoon is the unknowable is to say that within the
earth's cocoon is the unknowable. However, inside the earth's cocoon is also
the unknown, and inside man's cocoon the unknown is the emanations untouched
by awareness. When the glow of awareness touches them, they become active
and can be aligned with the corresponding emanations at large. Once that
happens the unknown is perceived and becomes the known.
"I'm too dumb, don Juan. You have to break it into smaller pieces for
me," I said.
"Genaro is going to break it up for you," don Juan retorted.
Genaro stood up and started doing the same gait of power that he had
done before, when he circled an enormous flat rock in a corn field by his
house, while don Juan had watched in fascination. This time don Juan
whispered in my ear that I should try to hear Genaro's movements, especially
the movements of his thighs as they went up against his chest every time he
stepped.
I followed Genaro's movements with my eyes. In a few seconds I felt
that some part of me had gotten trapped in Genaro's legs. The movement of
his thighs would not let me go. I felt as if I were walking with him. I was
even out of breath. Then I realized that I was actually following Genaro. I
was in fact walking with him, away from the place where we had been sitting.
I did not see don Juan, just Genaro walking ahead of me in the same
strange manner. We walked for hours and hours. My fatigue was so intense
that I got a terrible headache, and suddenly I got sick. Genaro stopped
walking and came to my side. There was an intense glare around us, and the
light was reflected in Genaro's features. His eyes glowed.
"Don't look at Genaro!" a voice ordered me in my ear. "Look around!"
I obeyed. I thought I was in hell! The shock of seeing the surroundings
was so great that I screamed in terror, but there was no sound to my voice.
Around me was the most vivid picture of all the descriptions of hell in my
Catholic upbringing. I was seeing a reddish world, hot and oppressive, dark
and cavernous, with no sky, no light but the malignant reflections of
reddish lights that kept on moving around us, at great speed.
Genaro started to walk again, and something pulled me with him. The
force that was making me follow Genaro also kept me from looking around. My
awareness was glued to Genaro's movements.
I saw Genaro plop down as if he were utterly exhausted. The instant he
touched the ground and stretched himself to rest, something was released in
me and I was able again to look around. Don Juan was watching me
inquisitively. I was standing up facing him. We were at the same place where
we had sat down, a wide rocky ledge on top of a small mountain. Genaro was
panting and wheezing, and so was I. I was covered with perspiration. My hair
was dripping wet. My clothes were soaked, as if I had been dunked in a
river.
"My God, what's going on!" I exclaimed in utter seriousness and
concern.
The exclamation sounded so silly that don Juan and Genaro started to
laugh.
"We're trying to make you understand alignment," Genaro said.
Don Juan gently helped me to sit down. He sat by me.
"Do you remember what happened?" he asked me.
I told him that I did and he insisted that I tell him exactly what I
had seen. His request was incongruous with what he had told me, that the
only value of my experiences was the movement of my assemblage point and not
the content of my visions.
He explained that Genaro had tried to help me before in very much the
same fashion as he had just done, but that I could never remember anything.
He said that Genaro had guided my assemblage point this time, as he had done
before, to assemble a world with another of the great bands of emanations.
There was a long silence. I was numb, shocked, yet my awareness was as
keen as it had ever been. I thought I had finally understood what alignment
was. Something inside me, which I had been activating without knowing how,
gave me the certainty that I had comprehended a great truth.
"I think you're beginning to gather your own momentum," don Juan said
to me. "Let's go home. You've had enough for one day."
"Oh, come on," Genaro said. "He's stronger than a bull. He's got to be
pushed a little further."
"No!" don Juan said emphatically. "We've got to save his strength. He's
only got so much of it."
Genaro insisted that we stay. He looked at me and winked.
"Look," he said to me, pointing to the eastern range of mountains. "The
sun has hardly moved an inch over those mountains and yet you plodded in
hell for hours and hours. Don't you find that overwhelming?"
"Don't scare him unnecessarily!" don Juan protested almost vehemently.
It was then that I saw their maneuvers. At that moment the voice of
seeing told me that don Juan and Genaro were a team of superb stalkers
playing with me. It was don Juan who always pushed me beyond my limits, but
he always let Genaro be the heavy. That day at Genaro's house, when I
reached a dangerous state of hysterical fright as Genaro questioned don Juan
whether I should be pushed, and don Juan assured me that Genaro was enjoying
himself at my expense, Genaro was actually worrying about me.
My seeing was so shocking to me that I began to laugh. Both don Juan
and Genaro looked at me with surprise. Then don Juan seemed to realize at
once what was going through my mind. He told Genaro, and both of them
laughed like children.
"You're coming of age," don Juan said to me. "Right on time; you're
neither too stupid nor too bright. Just like me. You're not like me in your
aberrations. There you are more like the nagual Julian, except that he was
brilliant."
He stood up and stretched his back. He looked at me with the most
piercing, ferocious eyes I had ever seen. I stood up.
"A nagual never lets anyone know that he is in charge," he said to me.
"A nagual comes and goes without leaving a trace. That freedom is what makes
him a nagual."
His eyes glared for an instant, and then they were covered by a cloud
of mellowness, kindness, humanness, and they were again don Juan's eyes.
I could hardly keep my balance. I was swooning helplessly. Genaro
jumped to my side and helped me to sit down. Both of them sat down flanking
me.
"You are going to catch a boost from the earth," don Juan said to me in
one ear.
"Think about the nagual's eyes," Genaro said to me in the other.
"The boost will come at the moment you see the glitter on the top of
that mountain," don Juan said and pointed to the highest peak on the eastern
range.
"You'll never see the nagual's eyes again," Genaro whispered.
"Go with the boost wherever it takes you," don Juan said.
"If you think of the nagual's eyes, you'll realize that there are two
sides to a coin," Genaro whispered.
I wanted to think about what both of them were saying, but my thoughts
did not obey me. Something was pressing down on me. I felt I was shrinking.
I had a sensation of nausea. I saw the evening shadows advancing rapidly up
the sides of those eastern mountains. I had the feeling that I was running
after them.
"Here we go," Genaro said in my ear.
"Watch the big peak, watch the glitter," don Juan said in my other ear.
There was indeed a point of intense brilliance where don Juan had
pointed, on the highest peak of the range. I watched the last ray of
sunlight being reflected on it. I felt a hole in the pit of my stomach, just
as if I were on a roller coaster.
I felt, rather than heard, a faraway earthquake rumble which abruptly
overtook me. The seismic waves were so loud and so enormous that they lost
all meaning for me. I was an insignificant microbe being twisted and
twirled.
The motion slowed down by degrees. There was one more jolt before
everything came to a halt. I tried to look around. I had no point of
reference. I seemed to be planted, like a tree. Above me there was a white,
shiny, inconceivably big dome. Its presence made me feel elated. I flew
toward it, or rather I was ejected like a projectile. I had the sensation of
being comfortable, nurtured, secure; the closer I got to the dome, the more
intense those feelings became. They finally overwhelmed me and I lost all
sense of myself.
The next thing I knew, I was rocking slowly in the air like a leaf that
falls. I felt exhausted. A suction force started to pull me. I went through
a dark hole and then I was with don Juan and Genaro.
The next day don Juan, Genaro, and I went to Oaxaca. While don Juan and
I strolled around the main square, in the later afternoon, he suddenly
started to talk about what we had done the day before. He asked me if I had
understood what he was referring to when he said that the old seers had
stumbled onto something monumental.
I told him that I did, but that I couldn't explain it in words.
"And what do you think was the main thing we wanted you to find out on
top of that mountain?" he asked.
"Alignment," a voice said in my ear, at the same time I said it myself.
I turned around in a reflex action and bumped into Genaro, who was just
behind me, walking in my tracks. The speed of my movement startled him. He
broke into a giggle and then embraced me.
We sat down. Don Juan said that there were very few things that he
could say about the boost I had gotten from the earth, that warriors are
always alone in such cases, and true realizations come much later, after
years of struggle.
I told don Juan that my problem in understanding was magnified by the
fact that he and Genaro were doing all the work. I was simply a passive
subject who could only react to their maneuvers. I could not for the life of
me initiate any action, because I did not know what a proper action should
be, nor did I know how to initiate it.
"That's precisely the point," don Juan said. "You are not supposed to
know yet. You are going to be left behind, by yourself, to reorganize on
your own everything we are doing to you now. This is the task every nagual
has to face.
"The nagual Julian did the same thing to me, much more ruthlessly than
the way we do it to you. He knew what he was doing; he was a brilliant
nagual who was able to reorganize in a few years everything the nagual Ellas
had taught him. He did, in no time at all, something that would take a
lifetime for you or for me. The difference was that all the nagual Julian
ever needed was a slight insinuation; his awareness would take it from there
and open the only door there is."
"What do you mean, don Juan, by the only door there is?"
"I mean that when man's assemblage point moves beyond a crucial limit,
the results are always the same for every man. The techniques to make it
move may be as different as they can be, but the results are always the
same, meaning that the assemblage point assembles other worlds, aided by the
boost from the earth."
"Is the boost from the earth the same for every man, don Juan?"
"Of course. The difficulty for the average man is the internal
dialogue. Only when a state of total silence is attained can one use the
boost. You will corroborate that truth the day you try to use that boost by
yourself."
"I wouldn't recommend that you try it," Genaro said sincerely. "It
takes years to become an impeccable warrior. In order to withstand the
impact of the earth's boost you must be better than you are now."
"The speed of that boost will dissolve everything about you," don Juan
said. "Under its impact we become nothing. Speed and the sense of individual
existence don't go together. Yesterday on the mountain, Genaro and I
supported you and served as your anchors; otherwise you wouldn't have
returned. You'd be like some men who purposely used that boost and went into
the unknown and are still roaming in some incomprehensible immensity."
I wanted him to elaborate on that, but he refused. He changed the
subject abruptly.
"There's one thing you haven't understood yet about the earth's being a
sentient being," he said. "And Genaro, this awful Genaro, wants to push you
until you understand."
Both of them laughed. Genaro playfully shoved me and winked at me as he
mouthed the words, "I am awful."
"Genaro is a terrible taskmaster, mean and ruthless," don Juan
continued. "He doesn't give a hoot about your fears and pushes you
mercilessly. If it wasn't for me. . ."
He was a perfect picture of a good, thoughtful old gentleman. He
lowered his eyes and sighed. The two of them broke into roaring laughter.
When they had quieted down, don Juan said that Genaro wanted to show me
what I had not understood yet, that the supreme awareness of the earth is
what makes it possible for us to change into other great bands of
emanations.
"We living beings are perceivers," he said. "And we perceive because
some emanations inside man's cocoon become aligned with some emanations
outside. Alignment, therefore, is the secret passageway, and the earth's
boost is the key.
"Genaro wants you to watch the moment of alignment. Watch him!"
Genaro stood up like a showman and took a bow, then showed us that he
had nothing up his sleeves or inside the legs of his pants. He took his
best to bend his knees. Don Juan said that while the old man washed his
wound, he would mumble incessantly; he had a vacant look in his eyes; his
hands shook, and his body trembled from head to toe.
When he was down on his knees, he could never get up by himself. He
would call his wife, yelling in a raspy voice, filled with contained anger.
The wife would come into the room and both of them would get into a horrible
argument. Often she would walk out, leaving the old man to get up by
himself.
Don Juan assured me that he had never felt so sorry for anyone as he
felt for that poor, kind old man. Many times he wanted to rise and help him
up, but he could hardly move himself. Once the old man spent half an hour
cursing and yelling, as he puffed and crawled like a slug, before he dragged
himself to the door and painfully lifted himself up to a standing position.
He explained to don Juan that his poor health was due to advanced age,
broken bones that had not mended properly, and rheumatism. Don Juan said
that the old man raised his eyes toward heaven and confessed to don Juan
that he was the most wretched man on earth; he had come to the curer for
help and had ended up marrying her and becoming a slave.
"I asked the old man why he didn't leave," don Juan continued. "The old
man's eyes widened with fear. He choked on his own saliva trying to hush me
and then he went rigid and fell down like a log on the floor, next to my
bed, trying to make me stop talking. 'You don't know what you're saying; you
don't know what you're saying. Nobody can run away from this place, ' the
old man kept on repeating with a wild expression in his eyes.
"And I believed him. I was convinced that he was more miserable, more
wretched than I had ever been myself. And with every day that passed I
became more and more uncomfortable in that house. The food was great and the
woman was always out curing people, so I was left with the old man. We
talked a lot about my life. I liked to talk to him. I told him that I had no
money to pay him for his kindness, but that I would do anything to help him.
He told me that he was beyond help, that he was ready to die, but that if I
really meant what I said, he would appreciate it if I would marry his wife
after he died.
"Right then I knew the old man was nuts. And right then I also knew
that I had to run away as soon as possible."
Don Juan said that when he was well enough to walk around unaided, his
benefactor gave him a chilling demonstration of his ability as a stalker.
Without any warning or preamble he put don Juan face to face with an
inorganic living being. Sensing that don Juan was planning to run away, he
seized the opportunity to scare him with an ally that was somehow able to
look like a monstrous man.
"The sight of that ally nearly drove me insane," don Juan continued. "I
couldn't believe my eyes, and yet the monster was right in front of me. And
the frail old man was next to me whimpering and begging the monster to spare
his life. You see, my benefactor was like the old seers; he could dole out
his fear, a piece at a time, and the ally was reacting to it. I didn't know
that. All I could see with my very own eyes was a horrendous creature
advancing on us, ready to tear us apart, limb from limb.
"The moment the ally lurched onto us, hissing like a serpent, I passed
out cold. When I came to my senses again, the old man told me that he had
made a deal with the creature."
He explained to don Juan that the man had agreed to let both of them
live, provided don Juan enter the man's service. Don Juan apprehensively
asked what was involved in the service. The old man replied that it would be
slavery, but pointed out that don Juan's life had nearly ended a few days
back when he had been shot. Had not he and his wife come along to stop the
bleeding, don Juan would surely have died, so there was really very little
to bargain with, or to bargain for. The monstrous man knew that and had him
over a barrel. The old man told don Juan to stop vacillating and accept the
deal, because if he refused, the monstrous man, who was listening behind the
door, would burst in and kill them both on the spot and be done with it.
"I had enough nerve to ask the frail old man, who was shaking like a
leaf, how the man would kill us," don Juan went on. "He said that the
monster planned to break all the bones in our bodies, starting with our
feet, as we screamed in unspeakable agony, and that it would take at least
five days for us to die.
"I accepted that man's conditions instantly. The old man, with tears in
his eyes, congratulated me and said that the deal wasn't really that bad. We
were going to be more prisoners than slaves of the monstrous man, but we
would eat at least twice a day; and since we had life, we could work for our
freedom; we could plot, connive, and fight our way out of that hell."
Don Juan smiled and then broke into laughter. He had known beforehand
how I would feel about the nagual Julian.
"I told you you'd be upset," he said.
"I really don't understand, don Juan," I said. "What was the point of
putting on such an elaborate masquerade?"
"The point is very simple," he said, still smiling. "This is another
method of teaching, a very good one. it requires tremendous imagination and
tremendous control on the part of the teacher. My method of teaching is
closer to what you consider teaching. It requires a tremendous amount of
words. I go to the extremes of talking. The nagual Julian went to the
extremes of stalking."
Don Juan said that there were two methods of teaching among the seers.
He was familiar with both of them. He preferred the one that called for
explaining everything and letting the other person know the course of action
beforehand. It was a system that fostered freedom, choice, and
understanding. His benefactor's method, on the other hand, was more coercive
and did not allow for choice or understanding. Its great advantage was that
it forced warriors to live the seers' concepts directly with no intermediary
elucidation.
Don Juan explained that everything his benefactor did to him was a
masterpiece of strategy. Every one of the nagual Julian's words and actions
was deliberately selected to cause a particular effect. His art was to
provide his words and actions with the most suitable context, so that they
would have the necessary impact.
"That's the stalkers' method," don Juan went on. "It fosters not
understanding but total realization. For instance, it took me a lifetime to
understand what he had done to me by making me face the ally, although I
realized all that without any explanation as I lived that experience.
"I've told you that Genaro, for example, doesn't understand what he
does, but his realization of what he is doing is as keen as it can be.
That's because his assemblage point was moved by the stalkers' method."
He said that if the assemblage point is forced out of its customary
setting by the method of explaining everything, as in my case, there is
always the need for someone else not only to help in the actual dislodging
of the assemblage point, but in dispensing the explanations of what is going
on. But if the assemblage point is moved by the stalkers' method, as in his
own case, or Genaro's, there is only a need for the initial catalytic act
that yanks the point from its location.
Don Juan said that when the nagual Julian made him face the
monstrous-looking ally his assemblage point moved under the impact of fear.
So intense a fright as that caused by the confrontation, coupled with his
weak physical condition, was ideal for dislodging his assemblage point.
In order to offset the injurious effects of fright, its impact had to
be cushioned, but not minimized. Explaining what was happening would have
minimized fear. What the nagual Julian wanted was to make sure that he could
use that initial catalytic fright as many times as he needed it, but he also
wanted to make sure that he could cushion its devastating impact; that was
the reason for his masquerade. The more elaborate and dramatic his stories
were, the greater their cushioning effect. If he, himself, seemed to be in
the same boat with don Juan, the fright would not be as intense as if don
Juan were alone.
"With his penchant for drama," don Juan went on, "my benefactor was
able to move my assemblage point enough to imbue me right away with an
overpowering feeling for the two basic qualities of warriors: sustained
effort and unbending intent. I knew that in order to be free again someday,
I would have to work in an orderly and steady fashion and in cooperation
with the frail old man, who in my opinion needed my help as much as I needed
his. I knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that that was what I wanted to do
more than anything else in life."
I did not get to talk to don Juan again until two days later. We were
in Oaxaca, strolling in the main square, in the early morning. There were
children walking to school, people going to church, a few men sitting on the
benches, and taxi drivers waiting for tourists from the main hotel.
"It goes without saying that the most difficult thing in the warriors'
path is to make the assemblage point move," don Juan said. "That movement is
the completion of the warriors' quest. To go on from there is another quest;
it is the seers' quest proper."
He repeated that in the warriors' way, the shift of the assemblage
point is everything. The old seers absolutely failed to realize this truth.
They thought the movement of the point was like a marker that determined
their positions on a scale of worth. They never conceived that it was that
very position which determined what they perceived.
"The stalkers' method," don Juan went on, "in the hands of a master
stalker like the nagual Julian, accounts for stupendous shifts of the
assemblage point. These are very solid changes; you see, by buttressing the
apprentice, the stalker-teacher gets the apprentice's full cooperation and
full participation. To get anybody's full cooperation and full participation
is about the most important outcome of the stalkers' method; and the nagual
Julian was the best at getting both of them."
Don Juan said that there was no way for him to describe the turmoil
that he went through as he found out, little by little, about the richness
and the complexity of the nagual Julian's personality and life. As long as
don Juan faced a scared, frail old man who seemed helpless, he was fairly at
ease, comfortable. But one day, soon after they had made the deal with what
don Juan thought of as a monstrous-looking man, his comfort was shot to
pieces when the nagual Julian gave don Juan another unnerving demonstration
of his stalking skills.
Although don Juan was quite well by then, the nagual Julian still slept
in the same room with him in order to nurse him. When he woke up that day,
he announced to don Juan that their captor was gone for a couple of days,
which meant that he did not have to act like an old man. He confided to don
Juan that he only pretended to be old in order to fool the monstrous-looking
man.
Without giving don Juan time to think, he jumped up from his mat with
incredible agility; he bent over and dunked his head in a pot of water and
kept it there for a while. When he straightened up, his hair was jet black,
the gray hair had washed away, and don Juan was looking at a man he had
never seen before, a man perhaps in his late thirties. He flexed his
muscles, breathed deeply, and stretched every part of his body as if he had
been too long inside a constricting cage.
"When I saw the nagual Julian as a young man, I thought that he was
indeed the devil," don Juan went on. "I closed my eyes and knew that my end
was near. The nagual Julian laughed until he was crying."
Don Juan said that the nagual Julian then put him at ease by making him
shift back and forth between the right side and the left side awareness.
"For two days the young man pranced around the house," don Juan
continued. "He told me stories about his life and jokes that sent me reeling
around the room with laughter. But what was even more astounding was the way
his wife had changed. She was actually thin and beautiful. I thought she was
a completely different woman. I raved about how complete her change was and
how beautiful she looked. The young man said that when their captor was away
she was actually another woman."
Don Juan laughed and said that his devilish benefactor was telling the
truth. The woman was really another seer of the nagual's party.
Don Juan asked the young man why they pretended to be what they were
not. The young man looked at don Juan, his eyes filled with tears, and said
that the mysteries of the world are indeed unfathomable. He and his young
wife had been caught by inexplicable forces and had to protect themselves
with that pretense. The reason why he carried on the way he did, as a feeble
old man, was that their captor was always peeking in through cracks in the
doors. He begged don Juan to forgive him for having fooled him.
Don Juan asked who that monstrous-looking man was. With a deep sigh,
the young man confessed that he could not even guess. He told don Juan that
although he himself was an educated man, a famous actor from the theater in
Mexico City, he was at a loss for explanations. All he knew was that he had
come to be treated for the consumption that he had suffered from for many
years. He was near death when his relatives brought him to meet the curer.
She helped him to get well, and he fell madly in love with the beautiful
young Indian and married her. His plans were to take her to the capital so
they could get rich with her curing ability.
Before they started on the trip to Mexico City, she warned him that
they had to disguise themselves in order to escape a sorcerer. She explained
to him that her mother had also been a curer, and had been taught curing by
that master sorcerer, who had demanded that she, the daughter, stay with him
for life. The young man said that he had refused to ask his wife about that
relationship. He only wanted to free her, so he disguised himself as an old
man and disguised her as a fat woman.
Their story did not end happily. The horrible man caught them and kept
them as prisoners. They did not dare to take off their disguise in front of
that nightmarish man, and in his presence they carried on as if they hated
each other; but in reality, they pined for each other and lived only for the
short times when that man was away.
Don Juan said that the young man embraced him and told him that the
room where don Juan was sleeping was the only safe place in the house. Would
he please go out and be on the lockout while he made love to his wife?
"The house shook with their passion," don Juan went on, "while I sat by
the door feeling guilty for listening and scared to death that the man would
come back any minute. And sure enough, I heard him coming into the house. I
banged on the door, and when they didn't answer, I walked in. The young
woman was asleep naked and the young man was nowhere in sight. I had never
seen a beautiful naked woman in my life. I was still very weak. I heard the
monstrous man rattling outside. My embarrassment and my fear were so great
that I passed out."
The story about the nagual Julian's doings annoyed me no end. I told
don Juan that I had failed to understand the value of the nagual Julian's
stalking skills. Don Juan listened to me without making a single comment and
let me ramble on and on.
When we finally sat down on a bench, I was very tired. I did not know
what to say when he asked me why his account of the nagual Julian's method
of teaching had upset me so much.
"I can't shake off the feeling that he was a prankster," I finally
said.
"Pranksters don't teach anything deliberately with their pranks," don
Juan retorted. "The nagual Julian played dramas, magical dramas that
required a movement of the assemblage point."
"He seems like a very selfish person to me," I insisted.
"He seems like that to you because you are judging," he replied. "You
are being a moralist. I went through all that myself. If you feel the way
you do on hearing about the nagual Julian, think of the way I must have felt
myself living in his house for years. I judged him, I feared him, and I
envied him, in that order.
"I also loved him, but my envy was greater than my love. I envied his
ease, his mysterious capacity to be young or old at will; I envied his flair
and above all his influence on whoever happened to be around. It would drive
me up the walls to hear him engage people in the most interesting
conversation. He always had something to say; I never did, and I always felt
incompetent, left out."
Don Juan's revelations made me feel ill at ease. I wished that he would
change the subject, for I did not want to hear that he was like me. In my
opinion, he was indeed unequaled. He obviously knew how I felt. He laughed
and patted my back.
"What I am trying to do with the story of my envy," he went on, "is to
point out to you something of great importance, that the position of the
assemblage point dictates how we behave and how we feel.
"My great flaw at that time was that I could not understand this
principle. I was raw. I lived through self-importance, just as you do,
because that was where my assemblage point was lodged. You see, I hadn't
learned yet that the way to move that point is to establish new habits, to
will it to move. When it did move, it was as if I had just discovered that
the only way to deal with peerless warriors like my benefactor is not to
have self-importance, so that one can celebrate them unbiasedly."
He said that realizations are of two kinds. One is just pep talk, great
outbursts of emotion and nothing more. The other is the product of a shift
of the assemblage point; it is not coupled with an emotional outburst but
with action. The emotional realizations come years later after warriors have
solidified, by usage, the new position of their assemblage points.
"The nagual Julian tirelessly guided all of us to that kind of shift,"
don Juan went on. "He got from all of us total cooperation and total
participation in his bigger-than-life dramas. For instance, with his drama
of the young man and his wife and their captor he had my undivided attention
and concern. To me the story of the old man who was young was very
consistent. I had seen the monstrous-looking man with my very own eyes,
which meant that the young man got my undying affiliation."
Don Juan said that the nagual Julian was a magician, a conjurer who
could handle the force of will to a degree that would be incomprehensible to
the average man. His dramas included magical characters summoned by the
force of intent, like the inorganic being that could adopt a grotesque human
form.
"The nagual Julian's power was so impeccable," don Juan went on, "that
he could force anyone's assemblage point to shift and align emanations that
would make him perceive whatever the nagual Julian wanted. For example, he
could look very old or very young for his age, depending on what he wanted
to accomplish. And all anyone who knew the nagual could say about his age
was that it fluctuated. During the thirty-two years that I knew him he was
at times not much older than you are now, and at other times he was so
wretchedly old that he could not even walk."
Don Juan said that under his benefactor's guidance his assemblage point
moved unnoticeably and yet profoundly. For instance, out of nowhere one day
he realized that he had a fear that on the one hand made no sense to him at
all, and on the other made all the sense in the world.
"My fear was that through stupidity I would lose my chance to be free
and I would repeat my father's life.
"There was nothing wrong with my father's life, mind you. He lived and
died no better and no worse than most men; the important point is that my
assemblage point had moved and I realized one day that my father's life and
death hadn't amounted to a hill of beans, either to others or to himself.
"My benefactor told me that my father and mother had lived and died
just to have me, and that their own parents had done the same for them. He
said that warriors were different in that they shift their assemblage points
enough to realize the tremendous price that has been paid for their lives.
This shift gives them the respect and awe that their parents never felt for
life in general, or for being alive in particular."
Don Juan said that not only was the nagual Julian successful in guiding
his apprentices to move their assemblage points, but that he enjoyed himself
tremendously while doing it.
"He certainly entertained himself immensely with me," don Juan went on.
"When the other seers of my party began to come, years later, even I looked
forward to the preposterous situations that he created and developed with
each one of them.
"When the nagual Julian left the world, delight went away with him and
never came back. Genaro delights us sometimes, but no one can take the
nagual Julian's place. His dramas were always bigger than life. I assure you
we didn't know what enjoyment was until we saw what he did when some of
those dramas backfired on him."
Don Juan rose from his favorite bench. He turned to me. His eyes were
brilliant and peaceful.
"If you are ever so dumb as to fail in your task," he said, "you must
have at least enough energy to move your assemblage point in order to come
to this bench. Sit down here for an instant, free of thoughts and desires; I
will try to come here from wherever I am and collect you. I promise you that
I will try."
He then broke into a great laugh, as if the scope of his promise was
too ludicrous to be believed.
"These words should be said in the late afternoon," he said, still
laughing. "Never in the morning. The morning makes one feel optimistic and
such words lose their meaning."
13 The Earth's Boost
"Let's walk on the road to Oaxaca," don Juan said to me. "Genaro is
waiting for us somewhere along the way."
His request took me by surprise. I had been waiting all day for him to
continue his explanation. We left his house and walked in silence through
the town to the unpaved highway. We walked leisurely for a long time.
Suddenly don Juan began to talk.
"I've been telling you all along about the great findings that the old
seers made," he said. "Just as they found out that organic life is not the
only life present on earth, they also discovered that the earth itself is a
living being."
He waited a moment before continuing. He smiled at me as if inviting me
to make a comment. I could not think of anything to say.
"The old seers saw that the earth has a cocoon," he went on. "They saw
that there is a ball encasing the earth, a luminous cocoon that entraps the
Eagle's emanations. The earth is a gigantic sentient being subjected to the
same forces we are."
He explained that the old seers, on discovering this, became
immediately interested in the practical uses of that knowledge. The result
of their interest was that the most elaborate categories of their sorcery
had to do with the earth. They considered the earth to be the ultimate
source of everything we are.
Don Juan reaffirmed that the old seers were not mistaken in this
respect, because the earth is indeed our ultimate source.
He didn't say anything else until we met Genaro about a mile up the
road. He was waiting for us, sitting on a rock by the side of the road.
He greeted me with great warmth. He said to me that we should climb up
to the top of some small rugged mountains covered with hardy vegetation.
"The three of us are going to sit against a rock," don Juan said to me,
"and look at the sunlight as it is reflected on the eastern mountains. When
the sun goes down behind the western peaks, the earth may let you see
alignment."
When we reached the top of a mountain, we sat down, as don Juan had
said, with our backs against a rock. Don Juan made me sit in between the two
of them.
I asked him what he was planning to do. His cryptic statements and his
long silences were ominous. I felt terribly apprehensive.
He didn't answer me. He kept on talking as if I had not spoken at all.
"it was the old seers who, on discovering that perception is
alignment," he said, "stumbled onto something monumental. The sad part is
that their aberrations again kept them from knowing what they had
accomplished."
He pointed at the mountain range east of the small valley where the
town is located.
"There is enough glitter in those mountains to jolt your assemblage
point," he said to me. "Just before the sun goes down behind the western
peaks, you will have a few moments to catch all the glitter you need. The
magic key that opens the earth's doors is made of internal silence plus
anything that shines."
"What exactly should I do, don Juan?" I asked.
Both of them examined me. I thought I saw in their eyes a mixture of
curiosity and revulsion.
"Just cut off the internal dialogue," don Juan said to me.
I had an intense pang of anxiety and doubt; I had no confidence that I
could do it at will. After an initial moment of nagging frustration, I
resigned my self just to relax.
I looked around. I noticed that we were high enough to look down into
the long, narrow valley. More than half of it was in the late-afternoon
shadows. The sun was still shining on the foothills of the eastern range of
mountains, on the other side of the valley; the sunlight made the eroded
mountains look ocher, while the more distant bluish peaks had acquired a
purple tone.
"You do realize that you've done this before, don't you?" don Juan said
to me in a whisper.
I told him that I had not realized anything.
"We've sat here before on other occasions," he insisted, "but that
doesn't matter, because this occasion is the one that will count.
"Today, with the help of Genaro, you are going to find the key that
unlocks everything. You won't be able to use it as yet, but you'll know what
it is and where it is. Seers pay the heaviest prices to know that. You,
yourself, have been paying your dues all these years."
He explained that what he called the key to everything was the
firsthand knowledge that the earth is a sentient being and as such can give
warriors a tremendous boost; it is an impulse that comes from the awareness
of the earth itself at the instant in which the emanations inside warriors'
cocoons are aligned with the appropriate emanations inside the earth's
cocoon. Since both the earth and man are sentient beings, their emanations
coincide, or rather, the earth has all the emanations present in man and all
the emanations that are present in all sentient beings, organic and
inorganic for that matter. When a moment of alignment takes place, sentient
beings use that alignment in a limited way and perceive their world.
Warriors can use that alignment either to perceive, like everyone else, or
as a boost that allows them to enter unimaginable worlds.
"I've been waiting for you to ask me the only meaningful question you
can ask, but you never ask it," he continued. "You are hooked on asking
about whether the mystery of it all is inside us. You came close enough,
though.
"The unknown is not really inside the cocoon of man in the emanations
untouched by awareness, and yet it is there, in a manner of speaking. This
is the point you haven't understood. When I told you that we can assemble
seven worlds besides the one we know, you took it as being an internal
affair, because your total bias is to believe that you are only imagining
everything you do with us. Therefore, you have never asked me where the
unknown really is. For years I have circled with my hand to point to
everything around us and I have told you that the unknown is there. You
never made the connection."
Genaro began to laugh, then coughed and stood up. "He still hasn't made
the connection," he said to don Juan.
I admitted to them that if there was a connection to be made, I had
failed to make it.
Don Juan restated over and over that the portion of emanations inside
man's cocoon is in there only for awareness, and that awareness is matching
that portion of emanations with the same portion of emanations at large.
They are called emanations at large because they are immense; and to say
that outside man's cocoon is the unknowable is to say that within the
earth's cocoon is the unknowable. However, inside the earth's cocoon is also
the unknown, and inside man's cocoon the unknown is the emanations untouched
by awareness. When the glow of awareness touches them, they become active
and can be aligned with the corresponding emanations at large. Once that
happens the unknown is perceived and becomes the known.
"I'm too dumb, don Juan. You have to break it into smaller pieces for
me," I said.
"Genaro is going to break it up for you," don Juan retorted.
Genaro stood up and started doing the same gait of power that he had
done before, when he circled an enormous flat rock in a corn field by his
house, while don Juan had watched in fascination. This time don Juan
whispered in my ear that I should try to hear Genaro's movements, especially
the movements of his thighs as they went up against his chest every time he
stepped.
I followed Genaro's movements with my eyes. In a few seconds I felt
that some part of me had gotten trapped in Genaro's legs. The movement of
his thighs would not let me go. I felt as if I were walking with him. I was
even out of breath. Then I realized that I was actually following Genaro. I
was in fact walking with him, away from the place where we had been sitting.
I did not see don Juan, just Genaro walking ahead of me in the same
strange manner. We walked for hours and hours. My fatigue was so intense
that I got a terrible headache, and suddenly I got sick. Genaro stopped
walking and came to my side. There was an intense glare around us, and the
light was reflected in Genaro's features. His eyes glowed.
"Don't look at Genaro!" a voice ordered me in my ear. "Look around!"
I obeyed. I thought I was in hell! The shock of seeing the surroundings
was so great that I screamed in terror, but there was no sound to my voice.
Around me was the most vivid picture of all the descriptions of hell in my
Catholic upbringing. I was seeing a reddish world, hot and oppressive, dark
and cavernous, with no sky, no light but the malignant reflections of
reddish lights that kept on moving around us, at great speed.
Genaro started to walk again, and something pulled me with him. The
force that was making me follow Genaro also kept me from looking around. My
awareness was glued to Genaro's movements.
I saw Genaro plop down as if he were utterly exhausted. The instant he
touched the ground and stretched himself to rest, something was released in
me and I was able again to look around. Don Juan was watching me
inquisitively. I was standing up facing him. We were at the same place where
we had sat down, a wide rocky ledge on top of a small mountain. Genaro was
panting and wheezing, and so was I. I was covered with perspiration. My hair
was dripping wet. My clothes were soaked, as if I had been dunked in a
river.
"My God, what's going on!" I exclaimed in utter seriousness and
concern.
The exclamation sounded so silly that don Juan and Genaro started to
laugh.
"We're trying to make you understand alignment," Genaro said.
Don Juan gently helped me to sit down. He sat by me.
"Do you remember what happened?" he asked me.
I told him that I did and he insisted that I tell him exactly what I
had seen. His request was incongruous with what he had told me, that the
only value of my experiences was the movement of my assemblage point and not
the content of my visions.
He explained that Genaro had tried to help me before in very much the
same fashion as he had just done, but that I could never remember anything.
He said that Genaro had guided my assemblage point this time, as he had done
before, to assemble a world with another of the great bands of emanations.
There was a long silence. I was numb, shocked, yet my awareness was as
keen as it had ever been. I thought I had finally understood what alignment
was. Something inside me, which I had been activating without knowing how,
gave me the certainty that I had comprehended a great truth.
"I think you're beginning to gather your own momentum," don Juan said
to me. "Let's go home. You've had enough for one day."
"Oh, come on," Genaro said. "He's stronger than a bull. He's got to be
pushed a little further."
"No!" don Juan said emphatically. "We've got to save his strength. He's
only got so much of it."
Genaro insisted that we stay. He looked at me and winked.
"Look," he said to me, pointing to the eastern range of mountains. "The
sun has hardly moved an inch over those mountains and yet you plodded in
hell for hours and hours. Don't you find that overwhelming?"
"Don't scare him unnecessarily!" don Juan protested almost vehemently.
It was then that I saw their maneuvers. At that moment the voice of
seeing told me that don Juan and Genaro were a team of superb stalkers
playing with me. It was don Juan who always pushed me beyond my limits, but
he always let Genaro be the heavy. That day at Genaro's house, when I
reached a dangerous state of hysterical fright as Genaro questioned don Juan
whether I should be pushed, and don Juan assured me that Genaro was enjoying
himself at my expense, Genaro was actually worrying about me.
My seeing was so shocking to me that I began to laugh. Both don Juan
and Genaro looked at me with surprise. Then don Juan seemed to realize at
once what was going through my mind. He told Genaro, and both of them
laughed like children.
"You're coming of age," don Juan said to me. "Right on time; you're
neither too stupid nor too bright. Just like me. You're not like me in your
aberrations. There you are more like the nagual Julian, except that he was
brilliant."
He stood up and stretched his back. He looked at me with the most
piercing, ferocious eyes I had ever seen. I stood up.
"A nagual never lets anyone know that he is in charge," he said to me.
"A nagual comes and goes without leaving a trace. That freedom is what makes
him a nagual."
His eyes glared for an instant, and then they were covered by a cloud
of mellowness, kindness, humanness, and they were again don Juan's eyes.
I could hardly keep my balance. I was swooning helplessly. Genaro
jumped to my side and helped me to sit down. Both of them sat down flanking
me.
"You are going to catch a boost from the earth," don Juan said to me in
one ear.
"Think about the nagual's eyes," Genaro said to me in the other.
"The boost will come at the moment you see the glitter on the top of
that mountain," don Juan said and pointed to the highest peak on the eastern
range.
"You'll never see the nagual's eyes again," Genaro whispered.
"Go with the boost wherever it takes you," don Juan said.
"If you think of the nagual's eyes, you'll realize that there are two
sides to a coin," Genaro whispered.
I wanted to think about what both of them were saying, but my thoughts
did not obey me. Something was pressing down on me. I felt I was shrinking.
I had a sensation of nausea. I saw the evening shadows advancing rapidly up
the sides of those eastern mountains. I had the feeling that I was running
after them.
"Here we go," Genaro said in my ear.
"Watch the big peak, watch the glitter," don Juan said in my other ear.
There was indeed a point of intense brilliance where don Juan had
pointed, on the highest peak of the range. I watched the last ray of
sunlight being reflected on it. I felt a hole in the pit of my stomach, just
as if I were on a roller coaster.
I felt, rather than heard, a faraway earthquake rumble which abruptly
overtook me. The seismic waves were so loud and so enormous that they lost
all meaning for me. I was an insignificant microbe being twisted and
twirled.
The motion slowed down by degrees. There was one more jolt before
everything came to a halt. I tried to look around. I had no point of
reference. I seemed to be planted, like a tree. Above me there was a white,
shiny, inconceivably big dome. Its presence made me feel elated. I flew
toward it, or rather I was ejected like a projectile. I had the sensation of
being comfortable, nurtured, secure; the closer I got to the dome, the more
intense those feelings became. They finally overwhelmed me and I lost all
sense of myself.
The next thing I knew, I was rocking slowly in the air like a leaf that
falls. I felt exhausted. A suction force started to pull me. I went through
a dark hole and then I was with don Juan and Genaro.
The next day don Juan, Genaro, and I went to Oaxaca. While don Juan and
I strolled around the main square, in the later afternoon, he suddenly
started to talk about what we had done the day before. He asked me if I had
understood what he was referring to when he said that the old seers had
stumbled onto something monumental.
I told him that I did, but that I couldn't explain it in words.
"And what do you think was the main thing we wanted you to find out on
top of that mountain?" he asked.
"Alignment," a voice said in my ear, at the same time I said it myself.
I turned around in a reflex action and bumped into Genaro, who was just
behind me, walking in my tracks. The speed of my movement startled him. He
broke into a giggle and then embraced me.
We sat down. Don Juan said that there were very few things that he
could say about the boost I had gotten from the earth, that warriors are
always alone in such cases, and true realizations come much later, after
years of struggle.
I told don Juan that my problem in understanding was magnified by the
fact that he and Genaro were doing all the work. I was simply a passive
subject who could only react to their maneuvers. I could not for the life of
me initiate any action, because I did not know what a proper action should
be, nor did I know how to initiate it.
"That's precisely the point," don Juan said. "You are not supposed to
know yet. You are going to be left behind, by yourself, to reorganize on
your own everything we are doing to you now. This is the task every nagual
has to face.
"The nagual Julian did the same thing to me, much more ruthlessly than
the way we do it to you. He knew what he was doing; he was a brilliant
nagual who was able to reorganize in a few years everything the nagual Ellas
had taught him. He did, in no time at all, something that would take a
lifetime for you or for me. The difference was that all the nagual Julian
ever needed was a slight insinuation; his awareness would take it from there
and open the only door there is."
"What do you mean, don Juan, by the only door there is?"
"I mean that when man's assemblage point moves beyond a crucial limit,
the results are always the same for every man. The techniques to make it
move may be as different as they can be, but the results are always the
same, meaning that the assemblage point assembles other worlds, aided by the
boost from the earth."
"Is the boost from the earth the same for every man, don Juan?"
"Of course. The difficulty for the average man is the internal
dialogue. Only when a state of total silence is attained can one use the
boost. You will corroborate that truth the day you try to use that boost by
yourself."
"I wouldn't recommend that you try it," Genaro said sincerely. "It
takes years to become an impeccable warrior. In order to withstand the
impact of the earth's boost you must be better than you are now."
"The speed of that boost will dissolve everything about you," don Juan
said. "Under its impact we become nothing. Speed and the sense of individual
existence don't go together. Yesterday on the mountain, Genaro and I
supported you and served as your anchors; otherwise you wouldn't have
returned. You'd be like some men who purposely used that boost and went into
the unknown and are still roaming in some incomprehensible immensity."
I wanted him to elaborate on that, but he refused. He changed the
subject abruptly.
"There's one thing you haven't understood yet about the earth's being a
sentient being," he said. "And Genaro, this awful Genaro, wants to push you
until you understand."
Both of them laughed. Genaro playfully shoved me and winked at me as he
mouthed the words, "I am awful."
"Genaro is a terrible taskmaster, mean and ruthless," don Juan
continued. "He doesn't give a hoot about your fears and pushes you
mercilessly. If it wasn't for me. . ."
He was a perfect picture of a good, thoughtful old gentleman. He
lowered his eyes and sighed. The two of them broke into roaring laughter.
When they had quieted down, don Juan said that Genaro wanted to show me
what I had not understood yet, that the supreme awareness of the earth is
what makes it possible for us to change into other great bands of
emanations.
"We living beings are perceivers," he said. "And we perceive because
some emanations inside man's cocoon become aligned with some emanations
outside. Alignment, therefore, is the secret passageway, and the earth's
boost is the key.
"Genaro wants you to watch the moment of alignment. Watch him!"
Genaro stood up like a showman and took a bow, then showed us that he
had nothing up his sleeves or inside the legs of his pants. He took his