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