to a sentence. I had said, "How are you, little coyote?" and I thought I had
heard the animal respond, "I'm all right, and you?" Then the coyote repeated
the sentence and I jumped to my feet. The animal did not make a single
movement. It was not even startled by my sudden jump. Its eyes were still
friendly and clear. It lay down on its stomach and tilted its head and
asked, "Why are you afraid?" I sat down facing it and I carried on the
weirdest conversation I had ever had. Finally it asked me what I was doing
there and I said I had come there to "stop the world." The coyote said, "Que
bueno!" and then I realized that it was a bilingual coyote. The nouns and
verbs of its sentences were in English, but the conjunctions and
exclamations were in Spanish. The thought crossed my mind that I was in the
presence of a Chicano coyote. I began to laugh at the absurdity of it all
and I laughed so hard that I became almost hysterical. Then the full weight
of the impossibility of what was happening struck me and my mind wobbled.
The coyote stood up and our eyes met. I stared fixedly into them. I felt
they were pulling me and suddenly the animal became iridescent; it began to
glow. It was as if my mind were replaying the memory of another event that
had taken place ten years before, when under the influence of peyote I
witnessed the metamorphosis of an ordinary dog into an unforgettable
iridescent being. It was as though the coyote had triggered the
recollection, and the memory of that previous event was summoned and became
superimposed on the coyote's shape; the coyote was a fluid, liquid, luminous
being. Its luminosity was dazzling. I wanted to cover my eyes with my hands
to protect them, but I could not move. The luminous being touched me in some
undefined part of myself and my body experienced such an exquisite
indescribable warmth and well-being that it was as if the touch had made me
explode. I became transfixed. I could not feel my feet, or my legs, or any
part of my body, yet something was sustaining me erect.
I have no idea how long I stayed in that position. In the meantime, the
luminous coyote and the hilltop where I stood melted away. I had no thoughts
or feelings. Everything had been turned off and I was floating freely.
Suddenly I felt that my body had been struck and then it became enveloped by
something that kindled me. I became aware then that the sun was shining on
me. I could vaguely distinguish a distant range of mountains towards the
west. The sun was almost over the horizon. I was looking directly into it
and then I saw the "lines of the world." I actually perceived the most
extraordinary profusion of fluorescent white lines which crisscrossed
everything around me. For a moment I thought that I was perhaps experiencing
sunlight as it was being refracted by my eyelashes. I blinked and looked
again. The lines were constant and were superimposed on or were coming
through everything in the surroundings. I turned around and examined an
extraordinarily new world. The lines were visible and steady even if I
looked away from the sun.
I stayed on the hilltop in a state of ecstasy for what appeared to be
an endless time, yet the whole event may have lasted only a few minutes,
perhaps only as long as the sun shone before it reached the horizon, but to
me it seemed an endless time. I felt something warm and soothing oozing out
of the world and out of my own body. I knew I had discovered a secret. It
was so simple. I experienced an unknown flood of feelings. Never in my life
had I had such a divine euphoria, such peace, such an encompassing grasp,
and yet I could not put the discovered secret into words, or even into
thoughts, but my body knew it. Then I either fell asleep or I fainted. When
I again became aware of myself I was lying on the rocks. I stood up. The
world was as I had always seen it. It was getting dark and I automatically
started on my way back to my car. Don Juan was alone in the house when I
arrived the next morning. I asked him about don Genaro and he said that he
was somewhere in the vicinity, running an errand. I immediately began to
narrate to him the extraordinary experiences I had had. He listened with
obvious interest. "You have simply stopped the world, " he commented after I
had finished my account. We remained silent for a moment and then don Juan
said that I had to thank don Genaro for helping me. He seemed to be
unusually pleased with me. He patted my back repeatedly and chuckled.
"But it is inconceivable that a coyote could talk, " I said.
"It wasn't talk, " don Juan replied.
"What was it then?"
"Your body understood for the first time. But you failed to recognize
that it was not a coyote to begin with and that it certainly was not talking
the way you and I talk."
"But the coyote really talked, don Juan!"
"Now look who is talking like an idiot. After all these years of
learning you should know better. Yesterday you stopped the world and you
might have even seen. A magical being told you something and your body was
capable of understanding it because the world had collapsed."
"The world was like it is today, don Juan."
"No, it wasn't. Today the coyotes do not tell you anything, and you
cannot see the lines of the world. Yesterday you did all that simply because
something had stopped in you."
"What was the thing that stopped in me?"
"What stopped inside you yesterday was what people have been telling
you the world is like. You see, people tell us from the time we are born
that the world is such and such and so and so, and naturally we have no
choice but to see the world the way people have been telling us it is."
We looked at each other.
"Yesterday the world became as sorcerers tell you it is, " he went on.
"In that world coyotes talk and so do deer, as I once told you, and so do
rattlesnakes and trees and all other living beings. But what I want you to
learn is seeing. Perhaps you know now that seeing happens only when one
sneaks between the worlds, the world of ordinary people and the world of
sorcerers. You are now smack in the middle point between the two. Yesterday
you believed the coyote talked to you.
Any sorcerer who doesn't see would believe the same, but one who sees
knows that to believe that is to be pinned down in the realm of sorcerers.
By the same token, not to believe that coyotes talk is to be pinned down in
the realm of ordinary men."
"Do you mean, don Juan, that neither the world of ordinary men nor the
world of sorcerers is real?"
"They are real worlds. They could act upon you. For example, you could
have asked that coyote about anything you wanted to know and it would have
been compelled to give you an answer. The only sad part is that coyotes are
not reliable. They are tricksters. It is your fate not to have a dependable
animal companion."
Don Juan explained that the coyote was going to be my companion for
life and that in the world of sorcerers to have a coyote friend was not a
desirable state of affairs. He said that it would have been ideal for me to
have talked to a rattlesnake, since they were stupendous companions.
"If I were you, " he added, "I would never trust a coyote. But you are
different and you may even become a coyote sorcerer."
"What is a coyote sorcerer?"
"One who draws a lot of things from his coyote brothers." I wanted to
keep on asking questions but he made a gesture to stop me.
"You have seen the lines of the world, " he said. "You have seen a
luminous being. You are now almost ready to meet the ally. Of course you
know that the man you saw in the bushes was the ally. You heard its roar
like the sound of a jet plane. He'll be waiting for you at the edge of a
plain, a plain I will take you to myself."
We were quiet for a long time. Don Juan had his hands clasped over his
stomach. His thumbs moved almost imperceptibly. "Genaro will also have to go
with us to that valley, " he said all of a sudden. "He is the one who has
helped you to stop the world."
Don Juan looked at me with piercing eyes. "I will tell you one more
thing, " he said and laughed. "It really does matter now. Genaro never moved
your car from the world of ordinary men the other day. He simply forced you
to look at the world like sorcerers do, and your car was not in that world.
Genaro wanted to soften your certainty. His clowning told your body about
the absurdity of trying to understand everything. And when he flew his kite
you almost saw. You found your car and you were in both worlds. The reason
we nearly split our guts laughing was because you really thought you were
driving us back from where you thought you had found your car."
"But how did he force me to see the world as sorcerers do?"
"I was with him. We both know that world. Once one knows that world all
one needs to bring it about is to use that extra ring of power I have told
you sorcerers have. Genaro can do that as easily as snapping his fingers. He
kept you busy turning over rocks in order to distract your thoughts and
allow your body to see."
I told him that the events of the last three days had done some
irreparable damage to my idea of the world. I said that during the ten years
I had been associated with him I had never been so moved, not even during
the times I had ingested psychotropic plants. "Power plants are only an aid,
" don Juan said. "The real thing is when the body realizes that it can see.
Only then is one capable of knowing that the world we look at every day is
only a description. My intent has been to show you that.
Unfortunately you have very little time left before the ally tackles
you."
"Does the ally have to tackle me?"
"There is no way to avoid it. In order to see one must learn the way
sorcerers look at the world and thus the ally has to be summoned, and once
that is done it comes."
"Couldn't you have taught me to see without summoning the ally?"
"No. In order to see one must learn to look at the world in some other
fashion, and the only other fashion I know is the way of a sorcerer."
Don Genaro returned around noon and at don Juan's suggestion the three
of us drove down to the range of mountains where I had been the day before.
We hiked on the same trail I had taken but instead of stopping in the high
plateau, as I had done, we kept on climbing until we reached the top of the
lower range of mountains, then we began to descend into a flat valley.
We stopped to rest on top of a high hill. Don Genaro picked the spot. I
automatically sat down, as I have always done in their company, with don
Juan to my right and don Genaro to my left, making a triangle. The desert
chaparral had acquired an exquisite moist sheen. It was brilliantly green
after a short spring shower.
"Genaro is going to tell you something, " don Juan said to me all of a
sudden. "He is going to tell you the story of his first encounter with his
ally. Isn't that so, Genaro?"
There was a tone of coaxing in don Juan's voice. Don Genaro looked at
me and contracted his lips until his mouth looked like a round hole. He
curled his tongue against his palate and opened and closed his mouth as if
he were having spasms.
Don Juan looked at him and laughed loudly. I did not know what to make
out of it.
"What's he doing?" I asked don Juan.
"He's a hen! "he said.
"A hen?"
"Look, look at his mouth. That's the hen's ass and it is about to lay
an egg."
The spasms of don Genaro's mouth seemed to increase. He had a strange,
crazy look in his eyes. His mouth opened up as if the spasms were dilating
the round hole. He made a croaking sound in his throat, folded his arms over
his chest with his hands bent inward, and then unceremoniously spat out some
phlegm.
"Damn it! It wasn't an egg, " he said with a concerned look on his
face.
The posture of his body and the expression on his face were so
ludicrous that I could not help laughing.
"Now that Genaro almost laid an egg maybe he will tell you about his
first encounter with his ally, " don Juan insisted.
"Maybe, " don Genaro said, uninterested. I pleaded with him to tell me.
Don Genaro stood up, stretched his arms and back. His bones made a
cracking sound. Then he sat down again. "I was young when I first tackled my
ally, " he finally said. "I remember that it was in the early afternoon. I
had been in the fields since daybreak and I was returning to my house.
Suddenly, from behind a bush, the ally came out and blocked my way. He
had been waiting for me and was inviting me to wrestle him. I began to turn
around in order to leave him alone but the thought came to my mind that I
was strong enough to tackle him. I was afraid though. A chill ran up my
spine and my neck became stiff as a board. By the way, that is always the
sign that you're ready, I mean, when your neck gets hard."
He opened up his shirt and showed me his back. He stiffened the muscles
of his neck, back, and arms. I noticed the superb quality of his
musculature. It was as if the memory of the encounter had activated every
muscle in his torso. "In such a situation, " he continued, "you must always
close your mouth."
He turned to don Juan and said, "Isn't that so?"
"Yes, " don Juan said calmly. "The jolt that one gets from grabbing an
ally is so great that one might bite off one's tongue or knock one's teeth
out. One's body must be straight and well-grounded, and the feet must grab
the ground." Don Genaro stood up and showed me the proper position: his body
slightly bent at the knees, his arms hanging at his sides with the fingers
curled gently. He seemed relaxed and yet firmly set on the ground. He
remained in that position for an instant, and when I thought he was going to
sit down he suddenly lunged forward in one stupendous leap, as if he had
springs attached to his heels. His movement was so sudden that
I fell down on my back; but as I fell I had the clear impression that
don Genaro had grabbed a man, or something which had the shape of a man.
I sat up again. Don Genaro was still maintaining a tremendous tension
all over his body, then he relaxed his muscles abruptly and went back to
where he had been sitting before and sat down.
"Carlos just saw your ally right now, " don Juan remarked casually,
"but he's still weak and fell down."
"Did you?" don Genaro asked in a naive tone and enlarged his nostrils.
Don Juan assured him that I had "seen" it.
Don Genaro leaped forward again with such a force that I fell on my
side. He executed his jump so fast that I really could not tell how he had
sprung to his feet from a sitting position in order to lunge forward.
Both of them laughed loudly and then don Genaro changed his laughter
into a howling indistinguishable from a coyote's.
"Don't think that you have to jump as well as Genaro in order to grab
your ally, " don Juan said in a cautioning tone. "Genaro jumps so well
because he has his ally to help him. All you have to do is to be firmly
grounded in order to sustain the impact. You have to stand just like Genaro
did before he jumped, then you have to leap forward and grab the ally."
"He's got to kiss his medallion first, " don Genaro interjected.
Don Juan, with feigned severity, said that I had no medallions.
"What about his notebooks?" don Genaro insisted. "He's got to do
something with his notebooks - put them down somewhere before he jumps, or
maybe he'll use his notebooks to beat the ally."
"I'll be damned!" don Juan said with seemingly genuine surprise. "I
have never thought of that. I bet it'll be the first time an ally is beaten
down to the ground with notebooks."
When don Juan's laughter and don Genaro's coyote howlings subsided we
were all in a very fine mood. "What happened when you grabbed your ally, don
Genaro?" I asked. "It was a powerful jolt, " don Genaro said after a
moment's hesitation. He seemed to have been putting his thoughts in order.
"Never would I have imagined it was going to be like that," he went on.
"It was something, something, something . . . like nothing I can tell. After
I grabbed it we began to spin. The ally made me twirl, but I didn't let go.
We spun through the air with such speed and force that I couldn't see any
more. Everything was foggy. The spinning went on, and on, and on. Suddenly I
felt that I was standing on the ground again. I looked at myself. The ally
had not killed me. I was in one piece. I was myself! I knew then that I had
succeeded. At long last I had an ally. I jumped up and down with delight.
What a feeling! What a feeling it was!
"Then I looked around to find out where I was. The surroundings were
unknown to me. I thought that the ally must have taken me through the air
and dumped me somewhere very far from the place where we started to spin. I
oriented myself. I thought that my home must be towards the east, so I began
to walk in that direction. It was still early. The encounter with the ally
had not taken too long. Very soon I found a trail and then I saw a bunch of
men and women coming towards me. They were Indians. I thought they were
Mazatec Indians. They surrounded me and asked me where I was going. Tm going
home to Ixtlan, ' I said to them. 'Are you lost?' someone asked. 'I am, ' I
said. 'Why?' 'Because Ixtlan is not that way. Ixtlan is in the opposite
direction. We ourselves are going there, ' someone else said. 'Join us!'
they all said. 'We have food!'"
Don Genaro stopped talking and looked at me as if he were waiting for
me to ask a question.
"Well, what happened?" I asked. "Did you join them?"
"No. I didn't, " he said. "Because they were not real. I knew it right
away, the minute they came to me. There was something in their voices, in
their friendliness that gave them away, especially when they asked me to
join them. So I ran away. They called me and begged me to come back. Their
pleas became haunting, but I kept on running away from them."
"Who were they?" I asked.
"People, " don Genaro replied cuttingly. "Except that they were not
real."
"They were like apparitions, " don Juan explained. "Like phantoms."
"After walking for a while, " don Genaro went on, "I became more
confident. I knew that Ixtlan was in the direction I was going. And then I
saw two men coming down the trail towards me. They also seemed to be Mazatec
Indians. They had a donkey loaded with firewood. They went by me and
mumbled, 'Good afternoon.'
"'Good afternoon!' I said and kept on walking. They did not pay any
attention to me and went their way. I slowed down my gait and casually
turned around to look at them. They were walking away unconcerned with me.
They seemed to be real. I ran after them and yelled, 'Wait, wait!' "They
held their donkey and stood on either side of the animal, as if they were
protecting the load. "I am lost in these mountains, ' I said to them. 'Which
way is Ixtlan?' They pointed in the direction they were going.
'You're very far, ' one of them said. 'It is on the other side of those
mountains. It'll take you four or five days to get there.' Then they turned
around and kept on walking. I felt that those were real Indians and I begged
them to let me join them. "We walked together for a while and then one of
them got his bundle of food and offered me some. I froze on the spot. There
was something terribly strange in the way he offered me his food. My body
felt frightened, so I jumped back and began to run away. They both said that
I would die in the mountains if I did not go with them and tried to coax me
to join them. Their pleas were also very haunting, but I ran away from them
with all my might. "I kept on walking. I knew then that I was on the right
way to Ixtlan and that those phantoms were trying to lure me out of my way.
"I encountered eight of them; they must have known that my
determination was unshakable. They stood by the road and looked at me with
pleading eyes. Most of them did not say a word; the women among them,
however, were more daring and pleaded with me. Some of them even displayed
food and other goods that they were supposed to be selling, like innocent
merchants by the side of the road. I did not stop nor did I look at them.
"By late afternoon I came to a valley that I seemed to recognize. It
was somehow familiar. I thought I had been there before, but if that was so
I was actually south of Ixtlan. I began to look for landmarks to properly
orient myself and correct my route when I saw a little Indian boy tending
some goats.
He was perhaps seven years old and was dressed the way I had been when
I was his age. In fact, he reminded me of myself tending my father's two
goats. "I watched him for some time; the boy was talking to himself, the
same way I used to, then he would talk to his goats. From what I knew about
tending goats he was really good at it. He was thorough and careful. He
didn't pamper his goats, but he wasn't cruel to them either.
"I decided to call him. When I talked to him in a loud voice he jumped
up and ran away to a ledge and peeked at me from behind some rocks. He
seemed to be ready to run for his life. I liked him. He seemed to be afraid
and yet he still found time to herd his goats out of my sight.
"I talked to him for a long time; I said that I was lost and that I did
not know my way to Ixtlan. I asked the name of the place where we were and
he said it was the place I had thought it was. That made me very happy. I
realized I was no longer lost and pondered on the power that my ally had in
order to transport my whole body that far in less time than it takes to bat
an eyelash.
"I thanked the boy and began to walk away. He casually came out of his
hiding place and herded his goats into an almost unnoticeable trail. The
trail seemed to lead down into the valley. I called the boy and he did not
run away. I walked towards him and he jumped into the bushes when I came too
close. I commended him on being so cautious and began to ask him some
questions.
'Where does this trail lead?' I asked. 'Down, ' he said. 'Where do you
live?' 'Down there.' 'Are there lots of houses down there?' 'No, just one.'
'Where are the other houses?' The boy pointed towards the other side of the
valley with indifference, the way boys his age do. Then he began to go down
the trail with his goats.
"Wait, ' I said to the boy. 'I'm very tired and hungry. Take me to your
folks."
"I have no folks, ' the little boy said and that jolted me. I don't
know why but his voice made me hesitate. The boy, noticing my hesitation,
stopped and turned to me. 'There's nobody at my house, ' he said. 'My uncle
is gone and his wife went to the fields. There is plenty of food. Plenty.
Come with me. "I almost felt sad. The boy was also a phantom. The tone of
his voice and his eagerness had betrayed him. The phantoms were out there to
get me but I wasn't afraid. I was still numb from my encounter with the
ally. I wanted to get mad at the ally or at the phantoms but somehow I
couldn't get angry like I used to, so I gave up trying. Then I wanted to get
sad, because I had liked that little boy, but I couldn't, so I gave up on
that too.
"Suddenly I realized that I had an ally and that there was nothing that
the phantoms could do to me. I followed the boy down the trail. Other
phantoms lurched out swiftly and tried to make me trip over the precipices,
but my will was stronger than they were. They must have sensed that, because
they stopped pestering me. After a while they simply stood by my path; from
time to time some of them would leap towards me but I stopped them with my
will. And then they quit bothering me altogether." Don Genaro remained quiet
for a long time. Don Juan looked at me.
"What happened after that, don Genaro?" I asked.
"I kept on walking, " he said factually.
It seemed that he had finished his tale and there was nothing he wanted
to add. I asked him why was the fact that they offered him food a clue to
their being phantoms. He did not answer. I probed further and asked whether
it was a custom among Mazatec Indians to deny that they had any food, or to
be heavily concerned with matters of food. He said that the tone of their
voices, their eagerness to lure him out, and the manner in which the
phantoms talked about food were the clues-and that he knew that because his
ally was helping him. He asserted that by himself alone he would have never
noticed those peculiarities. "Were those phantoms allies, don Genaro?" I
asked.
"No. They were people."
"People? But you said they were phantoms."
"I said that they were no longer real. After my encounter with the ally
nothing was real any more."
We were quiet for a long time.
"What was the final outcome of that experience, don Genaro?" I asked.
"Final outcome?"
"I mean, when and how did you finally reach Ixtlan?"
Both of them broke into laughter at once.
"So that's the final outcome for you, " don Juan remarked.
"Let's put it this way then. There was no final outcome to Genaro's
journey. There will never be any final outcome. Genaro is still on his way
to Ixtlan!" Don Genaro glanced at me with piercing eyes and then turned his
head to look into the distance, towards the south.
"I will never reach Ixtlan, " he said. His voice was firm but soft,
almost a murmur. "Yet in my feelings . . . in my feelings sometimes I think
I'm just one step from reaching it. Yet I never will. In my journey I don't
even find the familiar landmarks I used to know. Nothing is any longer the
same."
Don Juan and don Genaro looked at each other. There was something so
sad about their look.
"In my I find only phantom travelers," he said softly. I looked at don
Juan. I had not understood what don Genaro had meant.
"Everyone Genaro finds on his way to Ixtlan is only an ephemeral being,
" don Juan explained. "Take you, for instance. You are a phantom. Your
feelings and your eagerness are those of people. That's why he says that he
encounters only phantom travelers on his."
I suddenly realized that don Genaro's journey was a metaphor. "Your is
not real then, " I said.
"It is real!" don Genaro interjected. "The travelers are not real."
He pointed to don Juan with a nod of his head and said emphatically,
"This is the only one who is real. The world is real only when I am with
this one." Don Juan smiled. "Genaro was telling his story to you, " don Juan
said, "because yesterday you stopped the world, and he thinks that you also
saw, but you are such a fool that you don't know it yourself. I keep on
telling him that you are weird, and that sooner or later you will see. At
any rate, in your next meeting with the ally, if there is a next time for
you, you will have to wrestle with it and tame it. If you survive the shock,
which I'm sure you will, since you're strong and have been living like a
warrior, you will find yourself alive in an unknown land. Then, as is
natural to all of us, the first thing you will want to do is to start on
your way back to Los Angeles. But there is no way to go back to Los Angeles.
What you left there is lost forever. By then, of course, you will be a
sorcerer, but that's no help; at a time like that what's important to all of
us is the fact that everything we love or hate or wish for has been left
behind. Yet the feelings in a man do not die or change, and the sorcerer
starts on his way back home knowing that he will never reach it, knowing
that no power on earth, not even his death, will deliver him to the place,
the things, the people he loved. That's what Genaro told you."
Don Juan's explanation was like a catalyst; the full impact of don
Genaro's story hit me suddenly when I began to link the tale to my own life.
"What about the people I love?" I asked don Juan. "What would happen to
them?"
"They would all be left behind, " he said.
"But is there no way I could retrieve them? Could I rescue them and
take them with me?"
"No. Your ally will spin you, alone, into unknown worlds."
"But I could go back to Los Angeles, couldn't I? I could take the bus
or a plane and go there. Los Angeles would still be there, wouldn't it?"
"Sure, " don Juan said, laughing. "And so will Manteca and Temecula and
Tucson."
"And Tecate, " don Genaro added with great seriousness.
"And Piedras Negras and Tranquitas, " don Juan said, smiling.
Don Genaro added more names and so did don Juan; and they became
involved in enumerating a series of the most hilarious and unbelievable
names of cities and towns.
"Spinning with your ally will change your idea of the world, " don Juan
said. "That idea is everything; and when that changes, the world itself
changes."
He reminded me that I had read a poem to him once and wanted me to
recite it. He cued me with a few words of it and I recalled having read to
him some poems of Juan Ramon Jimenez. The particular one he had in mind was
entitled "El Viaje Definitivo" (The Definitive Journey). I recited it.
and I will leave. But the birds will stay, singing:
and my garden will stay, with its green tree,
with its water well.
Many afternoons the skies will be blue and placid,
and the bells in the belfry will chime,
as they are chiming this very afternoon.
The people who have loved me will pass away,
and the town will burst anew every year.
But my spirit will always wander nostalgic
in the same recondite corner of my flowery garden.
"That is the feeling Genaro is talking about, " don Juan said. "In
order to be a sorcerer a man must be passionate. A passionate man has
earthly belongings and things dear to him -if nothing else, just the path
where he walks. "What Genaro told you in his story is precisely that. Genaro
left his passion in Ixtlan: his home, his people, all the things he cared
for. And now he wanders around in his feelings; and sometimes, as he says,
he almost reaches Ixtlan. All of us have that in common. For Genaro it is
Ixtlan; for you it will be Los Angeles; for me ..." I did not want don Juan
to tell me about himself. He paused as if he had read my mind. Genaro sighed
and paraphrased the first lines of the poem. "I left. And the birds stayed,
singing." For an instant I sensed a wave of agony and an indescribable
loneliness engulfing the three of us. I looked at don Genaro and I knew
that, being a passionate man, he must have had so many ties of the heart, so
many things he cared for and left behind. I had the clear sensation that at
that moment the power of his recollection was about to landslide and that
don Genaro was on the verge of weeping. I hurriedly moved my eyes away. Don
Genaro's passion, his supreme loneliness, made me cry.
I looked at don Juan. He was gazing at me. "Only as a warrior can one
survive the path of knowledge, " he said. "Because the art of a warrior is
to balance the terror of being a man with the wonder of being a man." I
gazed at the two of them, each in turn. Their eyes were clear and peaceful.
They had summoned a wave of overwhelming nostalgia, and when they seemed to
be on the verge of exploding into passionate tears, they held back the tidal
wave. For an instant I think I saw. I saw the loneliness of man as a
gigantic wave which had been frozen in front of me, held back by the
invisible wall of a metaphor.
My sadness was so overwhelming that I felt euphoric. I embraced them.
Don Genaro smiled and stood up. Don Juan also stood up and gently put his
hand on my shoulder. "We are going to leave you here, " he said. "Do what
you think is proper. The ally will be waiting for you at the edge of that
plain."
He pointed to a dark valley in the distance. "If you don't feel that
this is your time yet, don't keep your appointment, " he went on. "Nothing
is gained by forcing the issue. If you want to survive you must be crystal
clear and deadly sure of yourself."
Don Juan walked away without looking at me, but don Genaro turned a
couple of times and urged me with a wink and a movement of his head to go
forward. I looked at them until they disappeared in the distance and then I
walked to my car and drove away. I knew that it was not my time, yet.
http://hotmix.narod.ru
heard the animal respond, "I'm all right, and you?" Then the coyote repeated
the sentence and I jumped to my feet. The animal did not make a single
movement. It was not even startled by my sudden jump. Its eyes were still
friendly and clear. It lay down on its stomach and tilted its head and
asked, "Why are you afraid?" I sat down facing it and I carried on the
weirdest conversation I had ever had. Finally it asked me what I was doing
there and I said I had come there to "stop the world." The coyote said, "Que
bueno!" and then I realized that it was a bilingual coyote. The nouns and
verbs of its sentences were in English, but the conjunctions and
exclamations were in Spanish. The thought crossed my mind that I was in the
presence of a Chicano coyote. I began to laugh at the absurdity of it all
and I laughed so hard that I became almost hysterical. Then the full weight
of the impossibility of what was happening struck me and my mind wobbled.
The coyote stood up and our eyes met. I stared fixedly into them. I felt
they were pulling me and suddenly the animal became iridescent; it began to
glow. It was as if my mind were replaying the memory of another event that
had taken place ten years before, when under the influence of peyote I
witnessed the metamorphosis of an ordinary dog into an unforgettable
iridescent being. It was as though the coyote had triggered the
recollection, and the memory of that previous event was summoned and became
superimposed on the coyote's shape; the coyote was a fluid, liquid, luminous
being. Its luminosity was dazzling. I wanted to cover my eyes with my hands
to protect them, but I could not move. The luminous being touched me in some
undefined part of myself and my body experienced such an exquisite
indescribable warmth and well-being that it was as if the touch had made me
explode. I became transfixed. I could not feel my feet, or my legs, or any
part of my body, yet something was sustaining me erect.
I have no idea how long I stayed in that position. In the meantime, the
luminous coyote and the hilltop where I stood melted away. I had no thoughts
or feelings. Everything had been turned off and I was floating freely.
Suddenly I felt that my body had been struck and then it became enveloped by
something that kindled me. I became aware then that the sun was shining on
me. I could vaguely distinguish a distant range of mountains towards the
west. The sun was almost over the horizon. I was looking directly into it
and then I saw the "lines of the world." I actually perceived the most
extraordinary profusion of fluorescent white lines which crisscrossed
everything around me. For a moment I thought that I was perhaps experiencing
sunlight as it was being refracted by my eyelashes. I blinked and looked
again. The lines were constant and were superimposed on or were coming
through everything in the surroundings. I turned around and examined an
extraordinarily new world. The lines were visible and steady even if I
looked away from the sun.
I stayed on the hilltop in a state of ecstasy for what appeared to be
an endless time, yet the whole event may have lasted only a few minutes,
perhaps only as long as the sun shone before it reached the horizon, but to
me it seemed an endless time. I felt something warm and soothing oozing out
of the world and out of my own body. I knew I had discovered a secret. It
was so simple. I experienced an unknown flood of feelings. Never in my life
had I had such a divine euphoria, such peace, such an encompassing grasp,
and yet I could not put the discovered secret into words, or even into
thoughts, but my body knew it. Then I either fell asleep or I fainted. When
I again became aware of myself I was lying on the rocks. I stood up. The
world was as I had always seen it. It was getting dark and I automatically
started on my way back to my car. Don Juan was alone in the house when I
arrived the next morning. I asked him about don Genaro and he said that he
was somewhere in the vicinity, running an errand. I immediately began to
narrate to him the extraordinary experiences I had had. He listened with
obvious interest. "You have simply stopped the world, " he commented after I
had finished my account. We remained silent for a moment and then don Juan
said that I had to thank don Genaro for helping me. He seemed to be
unusually pleased with me. He patted my back repeatedly and chuckled.
"But it is inconceivable that a coyote could talk, " I said.
"It wasn't talk, " don Juan replied.
"What was it then?"
"Your body understood for the first time. But you failed to recognize
that it was not a coyote to begin with and that it certainly was not talking
the way you and I talk."
"But the coyote really talked, don Juan!"
"Now look who is talking like an idiot. After all these years of
learning you should know better. Yesterday you stopped the world and you
might have even seen. A magical being told you something and your body was
capable of understanding it because the world had collapsed."
"The world was like it is today, don Juan."
"No, it wasn't. Today the coyotes do not tell you anything, and you
cannot see the lines of the world. Yesterday you did all that simply because
something had stopped in you."
"What was the thing that stopped in me?"
"What stopped inside you yesterday was what people have been telling
you the world is like. You see, people tell us from the time we are born
that the world is such and such and so and so, and naturally we have no
choice but to see the world the way people have been telling us it is."
We looked at each other.
"Yesterday the world became as sorcerers tell you it is, " he went on.
"In that world coyotes talk and so do deer, as I once told you, and so do
rattlesnakes and trees and all other living beings. But what I want you to
learn is seeing. Perhaps you know now that seeing happens only when one
sneaks between the worlds, the world of ordinary people and the world of
sorcerers. You are now smack in the middle point between the two. Yesterday
you believed the coyote talked to you.
Any sorcerer who doesn't see would believe the same, but one who sees
knows that to believe that is to be pinned down in the realm of sorcerers.
By the same token, not to believe that coyotes talk is to be pinned down in
the realm of ordinary men."
"Do you mean, don Juan, that neither the world of ordinary men nor the
world of sorcerers is real?"
"They are real worlds. They could act upon you. For example, you could
have asked that coyote about anything you wanted to know and it would have
been compelled to give you an answer. The only sad part is that coyotes are
not reliable. They are tricksters. It is your fate not to have a dependable
animal companion."
Don Juan explained that the coyote was going to be my companion for
life and that in the world of sorcerers to have a coyote friend was not a
desirable state of affairs. He said that it would have been ideal for me to
have talked to a rattlesnake, since they were stupendous companions.
"If I were you, " he added, "I would never trust a coyote. But you are
different and you may even become a coyote sorcerer."
"What is a coyote sorcerer?"
"One who draws a lot of things from his coyote brothers." I wanted to
keep on asking questions but he made a gesture to stop me.
"You have seen the lines of the world, " he said. "You have seen a
luminous being. You are now almost ready to meet the ally. Of course you
know that the man you saw in the bushes was the ally. You heard its roar
like the sound of a jet plane. He'll be waiting for you at the edge of a
plain, a plain I will take you to myself."
We were quiet for a long time. Don Juan had his hands clasped over his
stomach. His thumbs moved almost imperceptibly. "Genaro will also have to go
with us to that valley, " he said all of a sudden. "He is the one who has
helped you to stop the world."
Don Juan looked at me with piercing eyes. "I will tell you one more
thing, " he said and laughed. "It really does matter now. Genaro never moved
your car from the world of ordinary men the other day. He simply forced you
to look at the world like sorcerers do, and your car was not in that world.
Genaro wanted to soften your certainty. His clowning told your body about
the absurdity of trying to understand everything. And when he flew his kite
you almost saw. You found your car and you were in both worlds. The reason
we nearly split our guts laughing was because you really thought you were
driving us back from where you thought you had found your car."
"But how did he force me to see the world as sorcerers do?"
"I was with him. We both know that world. Once one knows that world all
one needs to bring it about is to use that extra ring of power I have told
you sorcerers have. Genaro can do that as easily as snapping his fingers. He
kept you busy turning over rocks in order to distract your thoughts and
allow your body to see."
I told him that the events of the last three days had done some
irreparable damage to my idea of the world. I said that during the ten years
I had been associated with him I had never been so moved, not even during
the times I had ingested psychotropic plants. "Power plants are only an aid,
" don Juan said. "The real thing is when the body realizes that it can see.
Only then is one capable of knowing that the world we look at every day is
only a description. My intent has been to show you that.
Unfortunately you have very little time left before the ally tackles
you."
"Does the ally have to tackle me?"
"There is no way to avoid it. In order to see one must learn the way
sorcerers look at the world and thus the ally has to be summoned, and once
that is done it comes."
"Couldn't you have taught me to see without summoning the ally?"
"No. In order to see one must learn to look at the world in some other
fashion, and the only other fashion I know is the way of a sorcerer."
Don Genaro returned around noon and at don Juan's suggestion the three
of us drove down to the range of mountains where I had been the day before.
We hiked on the same trail I had taken but instead of stopping in the high
plateau, as I had done, we kept on climbing until we reached the top of the
lower range of mountains, then we began to descend into a flat valley.
We stopped to rest on top of a high hill. Don Genaro picked the spot. I
automatically sat down, as I have always done in their company, with don
Juan to my right and don Genaro to my left, making a triangle. The desert
chaparral had acquired an exquisite moist sheen. It was brilliantly green
after a short spring shower.
"Genaro is going to tell you something, " don Juan said to me all of a
sudden. "He is going to tell you the story of his first encounter with his
ally. Isn't that so, Genaro?"
There was a tone of coaxing in don Juan's voice. Don Genaro looked at
me and contracted his lips until his mouth looked like a round hole. He
curled his tongue against his palate and opened and closed his mouth as if
he were having spasms.
Don Juan looked at him and laughed loudly. I did not know what to make
out of it.
"What's he doing?" I asked don Juan.
"He's a hen! "he said.
"A hen?"
"Look, look at his mouth. That's the hen's ass and it is about to lay
an egg."
The spasms of don Genaro's mouth seemed to increase. He had a strange,
crazy look in his eyes. His mouth opened up as if the spasms were dilating
the round hole. He made a croaking sound in his throat, folded his arms over
his chest with his hands bent inward, and then unceremoniously spat out some
phlegm.
"Damn it! It wasn't an egg, " he said with a concerned look on his
face.
The posture of his body and the expression on his face were so
ludicrous that I could not help laughing.
"Now that Genaro almost laid an egg maybe he will tell you about his
first encounter with his ally, " don Juan insisted.
"Maybe, " don Genaro said, uninterested. I pleaded with him to tell me.
Don Genaro stood up, stretched his arms and back. His bones made a
cracking sound. Then he sat down again. "I was young when I first tackled my
ally, " he finally said. "I remember that it was in the early afternoon. I
had been in the fields since daybreak and I was returning to my house.
Suddenly, from behind a bush, the ally came out and blocked my way. He
had been waiting for me and was inviting me to wrestle him. I began to turn
around in order to leave him alone but the thought came to my mind that I
was strong enough to tackle him. I was afraid though. A chill ran up my
spine and my neck became stiff as a board. By the way, that is always the
sign that you're ready, I mean, when your neck gets hard."
He opened up his shirt and showed me his back. He stiffened the muscles
of his neck, back, and arms. I noticed the superb quality of his
musculature. It was as if the memory of the encounter had activated every
muscle in his torso. "In such a situation, " he continued, "you must always
close your mouth."
He turned to don Juan and said, "Isn't that so?"
"Yes, " don Juan said calmly. "The jolt that one gets from grabbing an
ally is so great that one might bite off one's tongue or knock one's teeth
out. One's body must be straight and well-grounded, and the feet must grab
the ground." Don Genaro stood up and showed me the proper position: his body
slightly bent at the knees, his arms hanging at his sides with the fingers
curled gently. He seemed relaxed and yet firmly set on the ground. He
remained in that position for an instant, and when I thought he was going to
sit down he suddenly lunged forward in one stupendous leap, as if he had
springs attached to his heels. His movement was so sudden that
I fell down on my back; but as I fell I had the clear impression that
don Genaro had grabbed a man, or something which had the shape of a man.
I sat up again. Don Genaro was still maintaining a tremendous tension
all over his body, then he relaxed his muscles abruptly and went back to
where he had been sitting before and sat down.
"Carlos just saw your ally right now, " don Juan remarked casually,
"but he's still weak and fell down."
"Did you?" don Genaro asked in a naive tone and enlarged his nostrils.
Don Juan assured him that I had "seen" it.
Don Genaro leaped forward again with such a force that I fell on my
side. He executed his jump so fast that I really could not tell how he had
sprung to his feet from a sitting position in order to lunge forward.
Both of them laughed loudly and then don Genaro changed his laughter
into a howling indistinguishable from a coyote's.
"Don't think that you have to jump as well as Genaro in order to grab
your ally, " don Juan said in a cautioning tone. "Genaro jumps so well
because he has his ally to help him. All you have to do is to be firmly
grounded in order to sustain the impact. You have to stand just like Genaro
did before he jumped, then you have to leap forward and grab the ally."
"He's got to kiss his medallion first, " don Genaro interjected.
Don Juan, with feigned severity, said that I had no medallions.
"What about his notebooks?" don Genaro insisted. "He's got to do
something with his notebooks - put them down somewhere before he jumps, or
maybe he'll use his notebooks to beat the ally."
"I'll be damned!" don Juan said with seemingly genuine surprise. "I
have never thought of that. I bet it'll be the first time an ally is beaten
down to the ground with notebooks."
When don Juan's laughter and don Genaro's coyote howlings subsided we
were all in a very fine mood. "What happened when you grabbed your ally, don
Genaro?" I asked. "It was a powerful jolt, " don Genaro said after a
moment's hesitation. He seemed to have been putting his thoughts in order.
"Never would I have imagined it was going to be like that," he went on.
"It was something, something, something . . . like nothing I can tell. After
I grabbed it we began to spin. The ally made me twirl, but I didn't let go.
We spun through the air with such speed and force that I couldn't see any
more. Everything was foggy. The spinning went on, and on, and on. Suddenly I
felt that I was standing on the ground again. I looked at myself. The ally
had not killed me. I was in one piece. I was myself! I knew then that I had
succeeded. At long last I had an ally. I jumped up and down with delight.
What a feeling! What a feeling it was!
"Then I looked around to find out where I was. The surroundings were
unknown to me. I thought that the ally must have taken me through the air
and dumped me somewhere very far from the place where we started to spin. I
oriented myself. I thought that my home must be towards the east, so I began
to walk in that direction. It was still early. The encounter with the ally
had not taken too long. Very soon I found a trail and then I saw a bunch of
men and women coming towards me. They were Indians. I thought they were
Mazatec Indians. They surrounded me and asked me where I was going. Tm going
home to Ixtlan, ' I said to them. 'Are you lost?' someone asked. 'I am, ' I
said. 'Why?' 'Because Ixtlan is not that way. Ixtlan is in the opposite
direction. We ourselves are going there, ' someone else said. 'Join us!'
they all said. 'We have food!'"
Don Genaro stopped talking and looked at me as if he were waiting for
me to ask a question.
"Well, what happened?" I asked. "Did you join them?"
"No. I didn't, " he said. "Because they were not real. I knew it right
away, the minute they came to me. There was something in their voices, in
their friendliness that gave them away, especially when they asked me to
join them. So I ran away. They called me and begged me to come back. Their
pleas became haunting, but I kept on running away from them."
"Who were they?" I asked.
"People, " don Genaro replied cuttingly. "Except that they were not
real."
"They were like apparitions, " don Juan explained. "Like phantoms."
"After walking for a while, " don Genaro went on, "I became more
confident. I knew that Ixtlan was in the direction I was going. And then I
saw two men coming down the trail towards me. They also seemed to be Mazatec
Indians. They had a donkey loaded with firewood. They went by me and
mumbled, 'Good afternoon.'
"'Good afternoon!' I said and kept on walking. They did not pay any
attention to me and went their way. I slowed down my gait and casually
turned around to look at them. They were walking away unconcerned with me.
They seemed to be real. I ran after them and yelled, 'Wait, wait!' "They
held their donkey and stood on either side of the animal, as if they were
protecting the load. "I am lost in these mountains, ' I said to them. 'Which
way is Ixtlan?' They pointed in the direction they were going.
'You're very far, ' one of them said. 'It is on the other side of those
mountains. It'll take you four or five days to get there.' Then they turned
around and kept on walking. I felt that those were real Indians and I begged
them to let me join them. "We walked together for a while and then one of
them got his bundle of food and offered me some. I froze on the spot. There
was something terribly strange in the way he offered me his food. My body
felt frightened, so I jumped back and began to run away. They both said that
I would die in the mountains if I did not go with them and tried to coax me
to join them. Their pleas were also very haunting, but I ran away from them
with all my might. "I kept on walking. I knew then that I was on the right
way to Ixtlan and that those phantoms were trying to lure me out of my way.
"I encountered eight of them; they must have known that my
determination was unshakable. They stood by the road and looked at me with
pleading eyes. Most of them did not say a word; the women among them,
however, were more daring and pleaded with me. Some of them even displayed
food and other goods that they were supposed to be selling, like innocent
merchants by the side of the road. I did not stop nor did I look at them.
"By late afternoon I came to a valley that I seemed to recognize. It
was somehow familiar. I thought I had been there before, but if that was so
I was actually south of Ixtlan. I began to look for landmarks to properly
orient myself and correct my route when I saw a little Indian boy tending
some goats.
He was perhaps seven years old and was dressed the way I had been when
I was his age. In fact, he reminded me of myself tending my father's two
goats. "I watched him for some time; the boy was talking to himself, the
same way I used to, then he would talk to his goats. From what I knew about
tending goats he was really good at it. He was thorough and careful. He
didn't pamper his goats, but he wasn't cruel to them either.
"I decided to call him. When I talked to him in a loud voice he jumped
up and ran away to a ledge and peeked at me from behind some rocks. He
seemed to be ready to run for his life. I liked him. He seemed to be afraid
and yet he still found time to herd his goats out of my sight.
"I talked to him for a long time; I said that I was lost and that I did
not know my way to Ixtlan. I asked the name of the place where we were and
he said it was the place I had thought it was. That made me very happy. I
realized I was no longer lost and pondered on the power that my ally had in
order to transport my whole body that far in less time than it takes to bat
an eyelash.
"I thanked the boy and began to walk away. He casually came out of his
hiding place and herded his goats into an almost unnoticeable trail. The
trail seemed to lead down into the valley. I called the boy and he did not
run away. I walked towards him and he jumped into the bushes when I came too
close. I commended him on being so cautious and began to ask him some
questions.
'Where does this trail lead?' I asked. 'Down, ' he said. 'Where do you
live?' 'Down there.' 'Are there lots of houses down there?' 'No, just one.'
'Where are the other houses?' The boy pointed towards the other side of the
valley with indifference, the way boys his age do. Then he began to go down
the trail with his goats.
"Wait, ' I said to the boy. 'I'm very tired and hungry. Take me to your
folks."
"I have no folks, ' the little boy said and that jolted me. I don't
know why but his voice made me hesitate. The boy, noticing my hesitation,
stopped and turned to me. 'There's nobody at my house, ' he said. 'My uncle
is gone and his wife went to the fields. There is plenty of food. Plenty.
Come with me. "I almost felt sad. The boy was also a phantom. The tone of
his voice and his eagerness had betrayed him. The phantoms were out there to
get me but I wasn't afraid. I was still numb from my encounter with the
ally. I wanted to get mad at the ally or at the phantoms but somehow I
couldn't get angry like I used to, so I gave up trying. Then I wanted to get
sad, because I had liked that little boy, but I couldn't, so I gave up on
that too.
"Suddenly I realized that I had an ally and that there was nothing that
the phantoms could do to me. I followed the boy down the trail. Other
phantoms lurched out swiftly and tried to make me trip over the precipices,
but my will was stronger than they were. They must have sensed that, because
they stopped pestering me. After a while they simply stood by my path; from
time to time some of them would leap towards me but I stopped them with my
will. And then they quit bothering me altogether." Don Genaro remained quiet
for a long time. Don Juan looked at me.
"What happened after that, don Genaro?" I asked.
"I kept on walking, " he said factually.
It seemed that he had finished his tale and there was nothing he wanted
to add. I asked him why was the fact that they offered him food a clue to
their being phantoms. He did not answer. I probed further and asked whether
it was a custom among Mazatec Indians to deny that they had any food, or to
be heavily concerned with matters of food. He said that the tone of their
voices, their eagerness to lure him out, and the manner in which the
phantoms talked about food were the clues-and that he knew that because his
ally was helping him. He asserted that by himself alone he would have never
noticed those peculiarities. "Were those phantoms allies, don Genaro?" I
asked.
"No. They were people."
"People? But you said they were phantoms."
"I said that they were no longer real. After my encounter with the ally
nothing was real any more."
We were quiet for a long time.
"What was the final outcome of that experience, don Genaro?" I asked.
"Final outcome?"
"I mean, when and how did you finally reach Ixtlan?"
Both of them broke into laughter at once.
"So that's the final outcome for you, " don Juan remarked.
"Let's put it this way then. There was no final outcome to Genaro's
journey. There will never be any final outcome. Genaro is still on his way
to Ixtlan!" Don Genaro glanced at me with piercing eyes and then turned his
head to look into the distance, towards the south.
"I will never reach Ixtlan, " he said. His voice was firm but soft,
almost a murmur. "Yet in my feelings . . . in my feelings sometimes I think
I'm just one step from reaching it. Yet I never will. In my journey I don't
even find the familiar landmarks I used to know. Nothing is any longer the
same."
Don Juan and don Genaro looked at each other. There was something so
sad about their look.
"In my I find only phantom travelers," he said softly. I looked at don
Juan. I had not understood what don Genaro had meant.
"Everyone Genaro finds on his way to Ixtlan is only an ephemeral being,
" don Juan explained. "Take you, for instance. You are a phantom. Your
feelings and your eagerness are those of people. That's why he says that he
encounters only phantom travelers on his."
I suddenly realized that don Genaro's journey was a metaphor. "Your is
not real then, " I said.
"It is real!" don Genaro interjected. "The travelers are not real."
He pointed to don Juan with a nod of his head and said emphatically,
"This is the only one who is real. The world is real only when I am with
this one." Don Juan smiled. "Genaro was telling his story to you, " don Juan
said, "because yesterday you stopped the world, and he thinks that you also
saw, but you are such a fool that you don't know it yourself. I keep on
telling him that you are weird, and that sooner or later you will see. At
any rate, in your next meeting with the ally, if there is a next time for
you, you will have to wrestle with it and tame it. If you survive the shock,
which I'm sure you will, since you're strong and have been living like a
warrior, you will find yourself alive in an unknown land. Then, as is
natural to all of us, the first thing you will want to do is to start on
your way back to Los Angeles. But there is no way to go back to Los Angeles.
What you left there is lost forever. By then, of course, you will be a
sorcerer, but that's no help; at a time like that what's important to all of
us is the fact that everything we love or hate or wish for has been left
behind. Yet the feelings in a man do not die or change, and the sorcerer
starts on his way back home knowing that he will never reach it, knowing
that no power on earth, not even his death, will deliver him to the place,
the things, the people he loved. That's what Genaro told you."
Don Juan's explanation was like a catalyst; the full impact of don
Genaro's story hit me suddenly when I began to link the tale to my own life.
"What about the people I love?" I asked don Juan. "What would happen to
them?"
"They would all be left behind, " he said.
"But is there no way I could retrieve them? Could I rescue them and
take them with me?"
"No. Your ally will spin you, alone, into unknown worlds."
"But I could go back to Los Angeles, couldn't I? I could take the bus
or a plane and go there. Los Angeles would still be there, wouldn't it?"
"Sure, " don Juan said, laughing. "And so will Manteca and Temecula and
Tucson."
"And Tecate, " don Genaro added with great seriousness.
"And Piedras Negras and Tranquitas, " don Juan said, smiling.
Don Genaro added more names and so did don Juan; and they became
involved in enumerating a series of the most hilarious and unbelievable
names of cities and towns.
"Spinning with your ally will change your idea of the world, " don Juan
said. "That idea is everything; and when that changes, the world itself
changes."
He reminded me that I had read a poem to him once and wanted me to
recite it. He cued me with a few words of it and I recalled having read to
him some poems of Juan Ramon Jimenez. The particular one he had in mind was
entitled "El Viaje Definitivo" (The Definitive Journey). I recited it.
and I will leave. But the birds will stay, singing:
and my garden will stay, with its green tree,
with its water well.
Many afternoons the skies will be blue and placid,
and the bells in the belfry will chime,
as they are chiming this very afternoon.
The people who have loved me will pass away,
and the town will burst anew every year.
But my spirit will always wander nostalgic
in the same recondite corner of my flowery garden.
"That is the feeling Genaro is talking about, " don Juan said. "In
order to be a sorcerer a man must be passionate. A passionate man has
earthly belongings and things dear to him -if nothing else, just the path
where he walks. "What Genaro told you in his story is precisely that. Genaro
left his passion in Ixtlan: his home, his people, all the things he cared
for. And now he wanders around in his feelings; and sometimes, as he says,
he almost reaches Ixtlan. All of us have that in common. For Genaro it is
Ixtlan; for you it will be Los Angeles; for me ..." I did not want don Juan
to tell me about himself. He paused as if he had read my mind. Genaro sighed
and paraphrased the first lines of the poem. "I left. And the birds stayed,
singing." For an instant I sensed a wave of agony and an indescribable
loneliness engulfing the three of us. I looked at don Genaro and I knew
that, being a passionate man, he must have had so many ties of the heart, so
many things he cared for and left behind. I had the clear sensation that at
that moment the power of his recollection was about to landslide and that
don Genaro was on the verge of weeping. I hurriedly moved my eyes away. Don
Genaro's passion, his supreme loneliness, made me cry.
I looked at don Juan. He was gazing at me. "Only as a warrior can one
survive the path of knowledge, " he said. "Because the art of a warrior is
to balance the terror of being a man with the wonder of being a man." I
gazed at the two of them, each in turn. Their eyes were clear and peaceful.
They had summoned a wave of overwhelming nostalgia, and when they seemed to
be on the verge of exploding into passionate tears, they held back the tidal
wave. For an instant I think I saw. I saw the loneliness of man as a
gigantic wave which had been frozen in front of me, held back by the
invisible wall of a metaphor.
My sadness was so overwhelming that I felt euphoric. I embraced them.
Don Genaro smiled and stood up. Don Juan also stood up and gently put his
hand on my shoulder. "We are going to leave you here, " he said. "Do what
you think is proper. The ally will be waiting for you at the edge of that
plain."
He pointed to a dark valley in the distance. "If you don't feel that
this is your time yet, don't keep your appointment, " he went on. "Nothing
is gained by forcing the issue. If you want to survive you must be crystal
clear and deadly sure of yourself."
Don Juan walked away without looking at me, but don Genaro turned a
couple of times and urged me with a wink and a movement of his head to go
forward. I looked at them until they disappeared in the distance and then I
walked to my car and drove away. I knew that it was not my time, yet.
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